Growing up with strong female figures, photographer and curatorAaron Turner learned from a young age to integrate women’s perspectives into his outlook on life. “As I got older, I understood the complexities and inequalities between men and women in multiple spaces,” he says. “I began to notice the gaps in photographic history narratives, mostly white and male. But in my mind, I said to myself, I know other narratives exist; what are they, and where are they?”
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Just before he embarked on his MFA, Turner discovered the work ofDeborah Willis, Hank Willis Thomas, and Latoya Ruby Frazier. “I went my entire undergrad career not knowing about so many artists of colour, and I wondered how many other people did too,” he says.
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In response, Turner launched the Center for Photographers of Color in 2014, creating a platform to go beyond the narrow confines of the historically exclusionary photography world. Turner’s ongoing dedication to the work of Black artists now finds focus inWomen of the African Diaspora: Identity, Place, Migration, Immigration, a new exhibition that brings together work from three artists to explore the complexities of female perspectives while preserving the kinship that they all share.
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