Talk: Frederick Douglass in Photographs

Wednesday, January 11, 2023, 6:00 – 7:00pm CST

Presented virtually on Zoom. Please register here.

Join us for a virtual talk conversation between Refracting Histories artist Aaron Turner and photography scholar Shawn Michelle Smith. Turner and Smith will discuss Frederick Douglass as the most photographed person of the 19^th century, as well as his prescient views on the power of photography for shattering false narratives. Smith is professor of visual and critical studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois. She has published seven books, including American Archives: Gender, Race, and Class in Visual Culture (Princeton University Press, 1999), Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture (Duke University Press, 2004), and Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of Photography (Duke University Press, 2020).

Image: Aaron Turner, Seen, of light and legacy, from the Black Alchemy Vol.2 series, 2022