VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.
These intricately staged photographs offer glimpses of queer Black lives, both real and imagined. Here, Avion Pearce talks about the power of representation—and the responsibilities that places on them.
AVION PEARCE: In middle school, I found my dad’s little 35mm camera. I started taking it to school, taking photos of my friends and figuring out how to make an image. It was this thing I was doing for the joy of it. I felt like this was a way of creating a world without using language, and that was appealing to me.
It wasn’t until I left school in 2011 that I decided to take it seriously. I started thinking about history. One of the first projects was a fake archive. I created these two Black women in a relationship who were alive in the 1930s and 40s and created a whole world around them. I made stills from what might be a period film of these two women alongside an archive of their belongings: letters, objects, clothing, etc.
I was thinking: I might not have access to a history like this, but I can imagine it, and I think that’s really powerful. It was a way to create something I desperately wanted to see.
Then I turned to photographing people in my community in Brooklyn. I was thinking about survival as the city is rapidly changing, as gentrification and the housing crisis are issues, and a lot of people are being displaced. I’m exploring my responsibility in photographing a community that is trying to survive in this place—which I feel very protective of.
I think of photography as a really powerful tool for documenting and recording a time, place, and people, informing our ideas about these things, and confronting the issues of visibility and invisibility at the same time. I can use this tool to make commentary about the world around me. Maybe it can’t change laws, but it can impact the people who see the work.
I’ve gotten comments like: “The colors are so dark, this doesn’t feel very joyous to me.” My response is that I don’t owe anyone joy. Just because I’m photographing a marginalized community doesn’t mean I have to photograph them a certain way. I think that the images should be as complicated as the things that I’m speaking about. And I think that darkness is so beautiful and rich, and there’s so much there, and so much is revealed with the light.
People feel excited to be photographed in a way that’s more nuanced, poetic, and sentimental, even. That’s all that I want: to create a world and invite people in.
Follow Avion Pearce on Instagram.
Learn more about the magazine, subscription, and how we’re building a new era for VICE by joining the waitlist below.
SIGN UP TO THE VICE MAGAZINE WAITLIST
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive email messages from VICE
The post Avion Pearce Embraces Darkness in Their Queer Black Photography appeared first on VICE.
The post Avion Pearce Embraces Darkness in Their Queer Black Photography appeared first on VICE.
