Artist Practice
My journey as an artist started with exploring the world around me with my lens and hands. Image-making — photographing — has been a conflicting practice, in contrast to my values as a community member, activist, and Black woman. On one hand, it has developed work that I couldn’t even imagine. The other, I am aware of the history of how this tool contributed to different forms of oppression, I’m continually navigating and fighting against that. I am vocal about my disdain for institutions and never desire to be a part of the white cube bourgeoisie. Bringing folx to experience the different senses of my images. It has become a tool for me, for self-exploration. Liberating others. I have now engaged photography in developing imagery through the intention of care and liberation.
My practice is cathartic; it is a form of therapy for me. A catch-and-release method. I utilize my camera, archives, objects, and identity to cultivate the work. It is multi-faceted with the layering of narratives, emotions, and experiences and all intersect with one another. Archives. This is what led me to my recent work for the past 5 years of embracing the archives. I was taught that, spiritually, bringing the archives out on display shows acknowledgement, and then, in return, you are letting your loved ones become alive again. I follow this same practice within my work. I have been examining, listening to, and protecting the Black family archives within my work. I am continuing the practice of centering Blackness, eliminating--confronting the white gaze in photography, and creating a space for my community. There is a form of collaboration and respiration within these series. I find the sources and cultivation not purely by my own but by family upbringings, Black and Indigenous authors, womanists, musicians, community, and kin alike. The intentions are to continue to grow as an artist--to learn and unlearn--to continue contributing to the research and expressions of those before me, and I pray that it follows.
”The archives have liberated me.”
-Irene Antonia Diane Reece