Alaina Lurry is an Atlanta and Baltimore-based photographer studying at the Maryland Institute College Of Art. Her work explores the intricacies of black womanhood and self-identity. Her body of work involves foraging spaces of comfort for members of her community and honoring blackness with care and authenticity.
Alaina does this by exploring the intersections of black womanhood through means of comparison. By utilizing people of her community framed in different settings, she aims to push the boundaries of black portraiture and question the societal perceptions of blackness.
Primary Media Description: Photography
I collect tender, vulnerable and visceral moments from my communities’ lives, capturing them onto objects like scrap wood and found fabric to call into question the conventions of representation, beauty and the art canon. These surfaces act as “found objects,” carrying with them deep histories, experiences and energies.
The haze of chalk pastels, the vibrancy of acrylic, the grit of oil pastel come together within my work to create images of nightlife and domesticity. These warm snapshots and the barbed surfaces they are placed on speak to the experiences of interpersonal dynamics, marginalization, and poverty.
I’ve been fascinated by storytelling and fiction which made me take up my alias, Sandman, which symbolizes the stories I want to speak to with my words. My work centers on preserving and elevating Black narratives, particularly through printmaking, reclaiming mediums that were historically used African American contributions in literature, art, and fashion.
I use trace monotype’s hazy and textured visual elements to allude to a fragmented memory; this medium is executed by drawing on the back of paper ink, and the outcome, while controlled by hand, is often beautifully unpredictable like the stories that progress African-American stories.
I am a young, black, and hungry cre8tive who speaks to and for my people and to the struggles that I face and the struggles we face.
JamlTheCaml specializes in innovative leadership made approachable by utilizing creative visual arts, poetry, podcasting, and philosophy to demystify complex systems of understanding.
Mathilde Kabuka Mujanayi is a Congolese born, photo-based, interdisciplinary artist currently practicing in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work investigates and documents the Black immigrant identity under American-isms. With a BA in photography from Maryland Institute College of Art(MICA), she exercises various mediums through the lens of photography including fiber, installation, sculpture and performance in order to address personally led narratives. Mujanayi was recently 1 of 30 artists to receive the Aperture x GooglePixel Photo Fund. Within the same year, she was awarded the Jim Burger Thesis Award and was shortlisted for Daniele Tamagni Grant. Mujanayi has exhibited with Hamiltonian Artists in The 2024 Umbrella Art Fair, Candela Books + Gallery for UnBound13!, Silver Eye Center’s “In Dreams I walk With You” and the Art.Write.Now. Tour! At the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, amongst others.
Ziggy Sayeed is an artist who uses analog photography/film as his preferred medium. Sayeed’s work focuses on the interpersonal relationships surrounding his images rather than merely the making of the image itself. Sayeed’s work explores themes of intimacy, boyhood, and identity.
