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Rationale: To Be Seen Is Not the Same as To Be Known 

Photography has long been used to extract, classify and explain Black and rural lives to others. This photo set rejects this tradition. Instead, it insists on witnessing. The sitters, predominantly women, queer individuals, mature elders,and people with disabilities, are to be photographed first as they are, within their natural environments in Bethal: homes, streets, workplaces, places of rest. These are not staged images, they are grounded, tender and unadorned. But the work does not stop there. Each sitter is invited into conversation, about their hopes, their dreams, the life they imagine beyond the one they were handed. These conversations are not recorded as content alone, they are treated as creative material, shaping a second image.