Violetta

  Black girl joy- 20 photos of black women at Lawrence university smiling  When creating this, I wanted the pictures to tell an obvious story. After class, I kept thinking of how the artist was there in the world just capturing the world the way it was. Originally, I wanted to capture small moments of black women laughing in motion, but I ended up falling into the moment myself. However, I was still stuck on how a smile could tell a story. There is a trope that black people do not smile in photos because there was nothing to be happy about. This sweep of photos was to change that narrative. I wanted to capture an award-winning smile of black women, because amongst ourselves we always find a reason to be happy. I simply went up to random black women asked if I could take a picture of them for my project.  “The environment as a processor of information is propaganda. Propaganda ends where dialogue begins. You must talk to the media, not to the pro-grammar. To talk to the pr...