Artist Talk with Joshua Rashaad McFadden

Watch a recording of the talk here

Aperture, in collaboration with the photography program at Parsons School of Design at The New School, is pleased to present an artist talk with Joshua Rashaad McFadden. Through the use of photography and archive, McFadden explores African American male identity, masculinity, and notions of the father figure—providing a frame of reference that articulates the many personalities of Black men. His work continually investigates themes related to identity, masculinity, history, race, and sexuality. McFadden also documents social justice issues related to police brutality and the continuing protests across the United States.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden (born in Rochester, New York, 1990) is a visual artist and assistant professor of photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. He holds a BA in fine art from Elizabeth City State University, North Carolina, and an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia. McFadden was named one of the top emerging talents in the world by LensCulture in 2015, and he received a first-place prize in the 2020 International Photography Awards for After Selma, his response to the numerous recent incidents of police brutality. He also won the first place IPA award in 2016 for “Come to Selfhood,” a project examining African American manhood. In 2017, McFadden was recognized as one of Time magazine’s “American Voices” and received the Duke University Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award for Documentarians of Color. McFadden won the 2018 Communication Arts Award of Excellence for his I Am A Man series with Smithsonian Magazine. He has also been published in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slate,Travel + Leisure, Vanity Fair, and Financial Times. McFadden’s work has been exhibited at institutions such as the George Eastman Museum and Fotografiska New York, and he teaches workshops nationally and internationally.

Image: Alena holds her son, Tamaj (Washington, D.C.), from Unrest in America: March on Washington, 2020, inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist. © Joshua Rashaad McFadden.