In our new issue, photographers and filmmakers John Akomfrah and Ayana V. Jackson sit down to discuss the places their art begins and the shared areas to which it is taking them. Much of Jackson’s work considers the depiction of Black bodies in 19th- and early 20th-century art, using performance and studio-set portraiture to examine the role of art history in the forming of race and gender stereotypes. “I get a lot of, ‘Why would you want to unearth these painful narratives, to lay bare… your own journey of dealing with what it means to inhabit a Black woman’s body?'” she tells Akomfrah. “My answer is always that it has been a steady process of trying to get right with myself”. Read the full conversation in Elephant 46—out now.
