Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture

January 6 - April 29, September 15, 2024

Gestures of Refusal: Black Photography and Visual Culture, curated by Shana M. griffin, is a groundbreaking exhibition presented by SEEING BLACK in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Center, exploring the production of Black visual culture through photography and how Black photographers regularly use the lens of their cameras and creative practices to challenge everyday forms of violence, subjectivity, and erasure.

Featuring the work of more than one hundred contemporary Black photographers and artists, Gestures of Refusal brings attention to the ways that contemporary photographers wield the visual power of the camera to discern, behold, celebrate, and document people, places, events, collective memories, encounters, and other ever-present moments of blackness that refuse erasure.

From the invisible to the obvious, the mundane to the spectacular, the overlooked to the known, the erased, and to the remembered—the photography in the exhibition explores a range of narrative styles, compositions, techniques, and approaches for engaging the aesthetics of Black visuality.

As an exercise in the unconventional and the splendid, Gestures of Refusal is no ordinary exhibition or investigates how we experience and render Blackness visible. Encompassing five immersive installations, the exhibition showcases over 200 photographs and objects covering a spectrum of photographic frequencies, tenses, punctuation, and rhythmic scores, creating new visual vocabularies for futurity.

Contemporary Arts Center

900 Camp Street | New Orleans, LA 70131

Opening Reception

Saturday, January 6, 2024