Tinofara (current work in progress)

Tinofara (n.) - we are happy

Considering ideas of black joy, diasporic euphoria, and the quotidian as honorable in its daily displays of joy, I have embarked on this project to represent and explore the quotidian through portraiture. Closely reading the works of Tina Campt, Sally Mann, Nan Goldin, and Frederick Douglass (to name a few), ideas about what it means to take pride in the every day and regard its elements as radical struck me as important elements of my photographic practice. Particularly in work that exhibits the black and brown body as uncomfortable, unsolicited, or even dead, I am led to questions such as why the photographed black body has long been subject to white convenience and violence. In 'Tinofara', I look to portraiture as a mode of expression that shows the never-ending multiplicity of daily life, blackness, and diaspora.