Catchlight Visual Storytelling Summit: Kwame S. Brathwaite and Bayeté Ross Smith

Join Catchlight Visual Storytelling Summit on April 19 at The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) & online for a talk with Kwame S. Brathwaite and Bayeté Ross Smith.

For virtual livestream registration, click here.

For in-person registration, click here.

During the second Harlem Renaissance, Kwame Brathwaite used photography to fuel the Black Is Beautiful movement. Director of the Kwame Brathwaite Archive, Aperture Board Member and son of Brathwaite, Kwame S. Brathwaite’s labor of archiving reflects his continued commitment to Black freedom. Harlem-based Global Fellow Bayeté Ross Smith pushes forward this critical conversation about representation, cultural amnesia, and its ripple effects through time. His Red Summers—a series of 360 Virtual Reality videos published in The Guardian recount our nation’s history of domestic terrorism and racial violence, examining how these events directly impacted the social, political, and economic trajectory of America throughout the rest of the 20th century. Ross Smith and Brathwaite discuss the significance of preserving legacies—both joyous and tragic, personal and communal—and multi-platform storytelling’s critical role in ensuring visual, historical, and cultural literacy.

Image: Kwame Brathwaite, Sikolo Brathwaite wearing a headpiece designed by Carolee Prince, African Jazz-Art Society& Studios (AJASS), Harlem, ca. 1968; from Kwame Brathwaite: Black Is Beautiful (Aperture, 2019). Courtesy the artist and PhilipMartin Gallery, Los Angeles