In This Here Place [and] Evergreen
Dawoud Bey
October 23, 2021-January 23, 2022
Opening: October 23, 2021

Acclaimed photographer Dawoud Bey’s images poetically capture resonances of the Black American past in the present. For Prospect.5, Bey presents In This Here Place, a series of photographs of now unpopulated landscapes that were the site of traumatic past events. Bey photographed the west banks of the Mississippi River at Evergreen, Destrehan, Laura, Oak Alley, and Whitney Plantations, using large scale, black-and-white photography to ask “how [might we] visualize and make resonant the history of Black bodies in captivity?” Eight photographs from the series will be shown along with Evergreen—a three-channel video work featuring gospel music sung by Imani Uzuri, a vocalist and composer who frequently collaborates with visual artists. In contrast to the portrait photography for which Bey is most well known, this body of work is an invitation to consider history through its absence, and to look for haunting in the now unpopulated landscape.

Image: Dawoud Bey – St. Johns