Major exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum showcases contemporary photography by women artists of the African Diaspora

Jun, 27, 2022

Exhibitions and Special InstallationsPhotography

Major exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum showcases contemporary photography by women artists of the African Diaspora

And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora presents portraits, landscapes, archival images, and more by five photographers who offer intimate insight into their diasporic realities

PHOENIX (June 27, 2022) – This summer, Phoenix Art Museum will present And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora, a major photography exhibition showcasing the work of five photographers, all of whom explore the ways in which their experiences of the African Diaspora influence their understandings of identity, place, and belonging. Organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) in Tucson, the exhibition features more than 70 photographic works, including portraits, family archival images, and landscapes, by Widline Cadet, Jasmine Clarke, Hellen Gaudence, Nadiya I. Nacorda, and Sasha Phyars-Burgess. Curated by Aaron Turner, a regular collaborator with CCP and an African-American photographer and educator based in Arkansas, And Let It Remain So illustrates the distinct yet shared realities of the diasporic experience that define complex notions of home, citizenship, nationality, and self. The exhibition will be on view from July 20, 2022 through February 12, 2023 in the Doris and John Norton Gallery for the Center for Creative Photography at Phoenix Art Museum.

“We are excited to bring this outstanding selection of photographic works to our audiences in Phoenix, in collaboration with the Center for Creative Photography and curator Aaron Turner, who is a rising voice in the field of contemporary photography,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “From the perspectives of five emerging women photographers, And Let It Remain So offers unique insight into the various ways the African Diaspora informs individual, collective, and familial identities. Many of the themes explored throughout the exhibition will resonate with visitors from across our region who themselves have migrated and are members of diasporic communities.”

And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora presents the nuanced perspectives of five early career photographers who are exploring their experiences of the African Diaspora, defined by the voluntary and coerced movement of Africans and their descendants through various waves of migration and enslavement over centuries. The exhibition represents the first time works by Jasmine Clarke, Nadiya I. Nacorda, Widline Cadet, Hellen Gaudence, and Sasha Phyars-Burgess are presented in conversation.

Jasmine Clarke who was born and raised in Brooklyn, creates dreamlike and otherworldly images inspired by familial stories, shared memories, and visions that draw from the experiences of her Jamaican father. Born in Detroit and with Philippine and Xhosa (South Africa) familial roots, Nadiya I. Nacorda combines and layers photographic images—including family photographs—to reference shared stories and lived experiences that are both unique to her family and common to other diasporic communities with histories of colonization and displacement. Born in Pétion-Ville, Haiti, and now based in New York City, Widline Cadet explores ideas of belonging, migration, and selfhood through self-portraiture, family-album photographs, repetition, and observed detail. A project by Hellen Gaudence, who is based in New York City but splits her work between the United States and her home country, Tanzania, juxtaposes black-and-white portraits of African migrants residing in Tucson (where Gaudence completed her graduate studies) with color landscapes of roadside native plants engulfed in red dust that reference an absent and generalized African continent. Born in Brooklyn to Trinidadian parents, Sasha Phyars-Burgess creates intimate and observational black-and-white photographs of family and community in Trinidad and Tobago to explore the intersections where her expectations of the Caribbean overlap and diverge from observed reality.

“Although each artist featured in And Let It Remain So is sharing her unique and personal narrative, these photographers are united in their exploration of universal themes of home, place, and identity,” said Aaron Turner, the exhibition’s curator who serves as an assistant professor of art at the University of Arkansas’s School of Art and as director at the Center for Art as Lived Experience. “They are also pointing the cameras at their own families and grappling with the complexities and layers that come with turning the lens inward in this way. My hope is that the images and topics presented throughout the exhibition resonate with visitors from all backgrounds, particularly those who have immigrated or migrated, so we can start to build a sense of connection and belonging across diasporic communities.”

In addition to exploring how experiences of the African Diaspora influence understandings of identity and history, place and displacement, citizenship and nationality, and belonging and community, And Let It Remain So provides space to consider the larger role of photography in shaping personal understanding and imagined futures that combine elements of the past and present.

“By offering intimate views into their own distinct perspectives,” said Rebecca A. Senf, chief curator at CCP and organizing curator of And Let It Remain So at Phoenix Art Museum, “these talented and dynamic early career photographers are expanding the dialogue about the strengths and limitations of contemporary photography as a tool to convey diasporic identities.”

And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora is the most recent collaboration between Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. Over the past 13 years, the two institutions have co-organized nearly 40 exhibitions that bring outstanding works spanning the history of photography to wider audiences in Arizona.

About the Exhibition

And Let It Remain So: Women of the African Diaspora is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. It is made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members. The exhibition is curated by Aaron Turner, a regular collaborator with the Center for Creative Photography and an African-American photographer and educator based in Arkansas. Turner’s own photography focuses on the Arkansas and Mississippi deltas and his reflections on the place of the Civil Rights movement within his and his family’s experience. He is an assistant professor of art at University of Arkansas, School of Art, and the director of the Center for Art as Lived Experience. For more details about the exhibition, please click here. 

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans, active-duty military, and their immediate families; and youth aged 5 and younger. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered to the public included with voluntary “pay-what-you-wish” admission. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 9 pm. For a full breakdown of general-admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

High-resolution photography can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the leading art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About the Center for Creative Photography

The Center for Creative Photography is recognized as one of the world’s finest academic art museums and study centers for the history of photography. The Center opened in 1975, following a meeting between then University President Dr. John Schaefer and world-renowned photographer Ansel Adams. Beginning with the archives of five living master photographers—Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Frederick Sommer—the collection has grown to include 270 archival collections. Among these are some of the most recognizable names in 20th-century North American photography: Lola Álvarez Bravo, W. Eugene Smith, Edward Weston, and Garry Winogrand. Altogether, there are over eight million archival objects in the Center’s collection including negatives, work prints, contact sheets, albums, scrapbooks, correspondence, writings, audiovisual materials and memorabilia. In addition to whole archival collections, the Center also actively acquires individual photographs by modern and contemporary photographers. There are currently more than 110,000 works by over 2,200 photographers. A library of books, journals, and exhibition and auction catalogues, including many rare publications, plus an extensive oral history collection complements the archival and fine print collections. The combined art, archival, and research collections at the Center provide an unparalleled resource for research, exhibitions, loans, and traveling exhibitions. The Center has a full schedule of exhibitions, programs, and events designed to deepen an understanding of how the medium impacts society. For more details, as well as information on Center membership and ways to get involved, visit ccp.arizona.edu.