You are the [Theory]: The Interplay Between Black Photographs and Theory Making

• In Event: Critical Visual + Multimodal Research for Racial Justice

Abstract

In the summer of 2023, Beyoncé took to the global stage to tour her album Renaissance. Prior to and during the tour, she received persistent pressing from fans about when the visuals for her album would be released. After noticing a fan’s sign asking about the visuals during one of her U.S. shows, she replied “You are the visuals, baby,” highlighting the power of visuals to document experiences and shape narratives. Similarly, Black Americans have long used our own visuals, hung delicately in our homes, to tell of our lives and our theories. Throughout this chapter, we, a mother-daughter duo made up of two Black women, explore photographs from our family history to uncover our family’s theories of education as they pertain to resistance and liberatory living, a Black Feminist politic, and Black visual storytelling. As education scholars consider the role of creativity in the fight for racial justice (Coles & Player, 2024; Griffin & Player, 2023; Player, 2019; Toliver, 2024; Turner, 2022), we argue that turning to photography can unearth important theoretical insights about education past, present, and future. Importantly, throughout this paper we reject colonial language of photography (take, shoot, capture, etc.) as to not further perpetuate such harm. Instead, we use the language of documentation, as we believe the photographs we’ve chosen tell recorded stories of our lives.

Our documented discussion of our exploration of Black photographs illuminates the interplay between visual storytelling and the construction of Black theory, Black identity, Black joy, and Black resistance. Through our family's photographs, we bear witness to the embodiment of the theories that both ground and guide us, to kinship, and to a Black Feminist politic within notions of Black schooling. These photos tell counter stories that situate Black joy and care, rather than Black pain, at the center. They are counternarratives that emphasize our humanity and create an awareness of an identity that locates us as belonging to a rich Black legacy filled with stories of joy and triumph over struggle. Our photographs are proof, living artifacts, that we not only existed, but that we lived. They shed light on what we value and what has been passed down. They offer a story that cannot be erased or silenced.

Author

• Autumn A. Griffin, University of North Carolina - Charlotte