Photographer and poet Nadia Alexis will present photographs from her series, What Endures, which she deems “a form of homage to the departed and the living.” Alexis’s photographs of Southern landscapes, paired with a dual presence and absence of the self, are a statement of resistance to the erasure of the Black women lost to violence and whose spaces for mourning have been stolen. Alexis will be in conversation with Zainab Floyd, a current CCCADI Curatorial Fellow in Afro-Caribbean Art and the founder/artistic director of Caribbean Archive, which features Black Caribbean women’s scholarship on agency and resistance. The conversation will be hosted by Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of On Protest and Mourning.

_{Image: Nadia Alexis, What Endures. Courtesy of the artist.}

Filmmaker and photographer, Carlos Javier Ortiz will take us through his documentary film We All We Got (2014)—an elegy for the city and people of Chicago as it grappled with the scourge of violence and inconsolable loss while trying to rebuild. Ortiz, who thinks critically about place and the built environment as he examines the impact of violence in our communities, will share his work to illuminate the stories too often reduced to stereotypes. Ortiz will be in conversation with Laurence Ralph, Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and Director of Center on Transnational Policing, whose research examines policing and militarization in our contemporary moment. The conversation will be hosted by Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of On Protest and Mourning.

_{Carlos Javier Ortiz, We All We Got. Courtesy of the photographer.}

Dee Dwyer, a photographer based in Southeast, Washington, D.C., will share her personal and professional mission to counter the misrepresentation of the Southeast community with more genuine documentation. Through her series, Justice for Deon Kay, in which she portrays a neighborhood trying to make sense of exceptional loss, the killing of 18-year old Deon Kay by a police officer, Dwyer will talk about how these images also indict the systems that have failed a community in need. The conversation will be hosted by Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of On Protest and Mourning.

_{Image: Dee Dwyer, Justice for Deon Kay. Courtesy of the photographer.}

Vanessa Charlot will speak about Am I Next?—part of her ongoing documentary series to capture both the Black Lives Matter movement and everyday life in St. Louis, Missouri. Through images of a generation of men long steeped in the soundtrack of protest and the poetics of mourning and caught in an arduous, unending procession of grief, Charlot’s work illuminates the larger generational impact of racial injustice upon the Black male body in America. Charlot will be in conversation with Brianna Chandler, activist and organizer who works with Sunrise St. Louis, a youth-led organization focused on Black and indigenous liberation. The conversation will be hosted by Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of On Protest and Mourning.

_{Image: Vanessa Charlot, Am I Next? Courtesy of the photographer.}

Jon Henry will speak about Stranger Fruit, an ongoing body of work centering Black mothers in classical pietà poses with their sons. Through the portraits of women in intimate gestures of cradling, holding, and embracing their sons, Henry aims to capture the visceral fear and vulnerable emotional landscape of Black mothers. Henry will be in conversation with artist and writer Qiana Mestrich who wrote about Stranger Fruit for Photograph Magazine. Special guest Monifa Bandele, who has worked with MomsRising to advocate for economic security and justice for mothers and families, will offer remarks. The conversation will be hosted by Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of On Protest and Mourning. 

_{Image: Jon Henry, Untitled #3 Harlem, NY. Courtesy of the artist.}