Growing up in Germany, Russian Ghanaian artist Liz Johnson Artur spent her summers in the former Soviet Union. But in 1986, she received an invitation to stay with a family friend in Brooklyn. Deep in Williamsburg, long before it was gentrified, Artur found herself in a black community for the very first time.
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“Up until then I hadn’t really travelled in any countries that had a black population,” she says. “Coming to Brooklyn was something I didn’t expect, but I realised I could take pictures of people,” she says. Over the past three decades, Artur has been taking photographs of the African diaspora as an extension of herself, seamlessly integrating the practice of photography into her everyday life.
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The result is Artur’s ongoing Black Balloon Archive, selections from which are included in the intimate exhibition Dusha, along with two videos and a selection of sketchbooks. “Dusha,” which means “soul” in Russian, is at the heart of Artur’s work. As a self-described “product of migration” who adopted London as her home, Artur’s artistic process is her way of being in the world.
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