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And Still, I Rise showcases protest and activist photographs featured in color and black and white. From the past to the present, photographers Nicole Buchanan, Builder Levy, Shoccara Marcus, and Cendino Temé collectively add to the conversation and create a portrait of our current societal climate with their camera's capturing history in the making. They each endeavor to add to the visual dialog and conversation to make the 'voice of change' heard, creating a platform to make the change they wish to see.
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Strange Fruit, 2020
Our race plays a role in the perception of who we are whether we want it to or not. We are constantly incorporating our identities as black men and women as we cry out loud for our voices to be heard. Experiences of underrepresentation and microaggressions that occur not only in the workplace but out in public need to be heard. Additionally, this work is a mechanism to challenge the stereotype of males being viewed as criminals and thugs, similarly how women are over-sexualized in the media. This plays into effect in racial profiling by the police and everyday society. Giving a voice to these individuals who are underrepresented and silenced is the most important thing I wanted to come across in this body of work.
-Nicole Buchanan
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March happened. COVID-19…Shelter in Place… Everything Paused.It happened in a way that I did not have a clue of how I would make it through. I sat at home thinking about my voice and what I had to contribute as an artist. I felt weak and useless and because of the pandemic, I was afraid to leave my place. Then out of nowhere I mustard the ability to do so. I felt it was my job to use my instrument, my camera to document the story. I documented the pain, the rage of the marches, but also the solidarity it brought. I did so and I captured some of the most beautiful passionate images.-Shoccara Marcus
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Resistance, 2013
The No More Blues series is a compilation of visual images of a 2013 protest that ignited as a direct response to the murder of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent failure of the American legal system to hold his murderer, George Zimmerman, accountable. The Blues is the birthchild and invention of black folks living in America and came about a few years after abolishing slavery. It is the song and traumatic melodic expression of a persecuted people. No More Blues attempts to capture individuals exhibiting a crisis of consciousness through the medium of visual expression wherein the unending mistreatment, subjugation, and oppression of black people in America would no longer be tolerated or denied.
The protest and series mark a vital contribution to Black lives' dialogue and their value in America and worldwide. More importantly, this series captures the zeal, tenacity, and fearlessness of young individuals conveying a message of urgent change and immediate action. Seven years after this exhibition, the American people find themselves back on the front lines of a social justice movement with the demand for eradication of a systematic virus that gives way to violence against black bodies with no accountability. At present, the justice movement is intertwined with an impending economic crisis and global pandemic, bringing clear awareness to the cultural inequities caused by racism.
-Cendino Temé
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Nicole Buchanan, Builder Levy, Shoccara Marcus, and Cendino Temé, October 29 - December 11 2020
