Image: Dawoud Bey, A Young Man in a Bandana and Swimming Trunks, Rochester, New York, 1989; gelatin silver print; 24 x 19 1/2 in. (60.96 x 49.53 cm); collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Dawoud Bey

Join us for a 3-part lecture series on Thursday evenings in February on African Diaspora Photography with California College of the Arts Professsor Makeda Best

Discussions will introduce audiences to key African American photographers, photographers of the African diaspora, and their work. Though thematically organized, these will be active discussions in which the attendees will be encouraged to discuss and respond to works presented throughout the core lecture presentation. A short bibliography will be available for interested attendees for further reading and exploration.

Students will gain both an understanding of the history of African American photography and photography of the African diaspora, and a general introduction to the history of photography.

WEEK 2 | African American Photography and Social Justice Movements In social justice movements throughout the African diaspora, participants have organized to use photographic images and photographic print media in their work to define their campaign, expose injustice, and organize and inspire participants and followers. Topics to be discussed include the function of photography during the anti-lynching campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, the Black Panther Party activities, and contemporary photographers like Ruby LaToya Frazier. The discussion will also integrate a consideration of South African photojournalism of the Apartheid Era.

Makeda Best is a historian of photography and an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies at the California College of the Arts. She earned her PhD from Harvard University; she also studied studio photography at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, where she earned an MFA. She is featured in Oregon Public Radio and Annenberg Learner’s Essential Lens – Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum (2015).