Father’s Day this yr fell on Juneteenth, the normal celebration of Black American emancipation and the most recent federal vacation in america. George Washington College’s Imani Cheers has lengthy seen this confluence as a chance. In 2020, she deliberately selected that weekend because the opening date for an exhibition on constructive pictures of Black males, for which Cheers, a skilled photographer, initially deliberate to journey and take portraits.
Through the years since its inception, nonetheless, Cheers mentioned she started to really feel it was extra necessary for the present to highlight Black male artists’ visions of their very own friends and communities. As an artist, as an educational, and significantly as a mom, Cheers mentioned, her objective turned “to crowdsource and curate” constructive, layered pictures of Black males for her personal son — pictures created by the Black males who’re his potential mentors, position fashions, and group members.
That venture is now Framing Fatherhood, a photojournalism exhibition hosted by the Corcoran Faculty of the Arts and Design that celebrates visions of Black masculinity by way of the lens of 14 Black male artists. Framing Fatherhood is an extension of It Takes a Village: Fundamentals of Boyhood and Messages of Manhood, Cheers’s ongoing media venture exploring the illustration and actuality of Black males as youngsters, adults, pals, companions, and fogeys.
“We all know, sadly, that being Black in America is a difficult house… so once I’m elevating my son in an American context, I’ve to consciously be sure that he is aware of that he’s cherished and valued,” mentioned Cheers, who’s interim senior affiliate provost for undergraduate training in addition to an affiliate professor of media and public affairs within the Faculty of Media and Public Affairs. “The aim of this exhibition is for him to be uplifted by and reminded of the nice that I already know exists.”
For extra info, go to boyhood2manhood.com.
Framing Fatherhood is free and open to the general public till July 31, Wednesdays by way of Sundays from 1–6pm on the Corcoran Faculty of the Arts and Design, 500 seventeenth Road NW in Washington, DC.
