Laylah Amatullah Barrayn is a documentary photographer based in New York City. Her work has been supported with grants and fellowships from the International Women’s Media Foundation, Columbia University’s Institute for Research in African American Studies, and the Research Foundation of the City University of New York. She is a four-time recipient of the Community Arts Grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. Her projects have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, BBC, and OkayAfrica, among other publications. She has curated exhibitions at the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Port Authority of NY/NJ, and has given talks on her photography at Yale University, New York University, Howard University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She was recently an artist-in-residence at the Waaw Centre for Art and Design in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Barrayn is the founder and coeditor of Mfon: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora.
Photo Credit: Alex Bershaw
Through decades of Black figurative film-based photography, Cheryl Miller chronicles everyday experiences in the series “If We Stand Tall: Recollections of Spirits Past”—the rituals, social dynamics, and cultural nuances that define African American communities.
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We Are Present is an excerpt of portraits taken in New York and Minneapolis that documents the lived experiences of Black Americans during the double crisis of the pandemic, and the uprisings against injustice.
ALTAR: Prayer, Ritual, Offering engages photography as a practice containing attributes and religious traditions of Africa and its diaspora.
Learn MoreThis exhibition takes the altar out of its religious context and interrogates photography as a practice containing the same attributes as altars. The images presented in this exhibition examines several religious traditions that have originated in and/or practiced on the African continent and throughout the world.
Learn MoreCollective Energy: A Virtual Gathering is a virtual assembly of artists and intellectuals moderated by Adama Delphine Fawundu and Laylah Amatullah Barrayn. We will be discussing the global impact and need for photography collectives when it comes to women photographers.
Learn MoreThe one-day symposium will include a series of panel discussions, featuring scholars, artists, curators and centered around archiving and elevating the voices of women and non-binary of photographers of African descent, as part of Photoville’s annual Festival in New York City.
Learn MoreBehind the Shutter is a live visual storytelling event that gives Black Shutter Productions’ guests an opportunity to talk about their work and their process of making images.
Learn MoreA panel discussion moderated by MFON co-founders Laylah Amatullah Barryan and Adama Delphine Fawundu will feature contributing photographers sharing perspectives on photography and spirituality.
Learn MoreJoin us for a fast-paced presentation by a unique group of cross-disciplined Photoville artists as they reveal their sources of creativity.
Learn MoreA panel discussion moderated by MFON co-founders, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Adama Delphine Fawundu, will feature contributing photographers sharing perspectives on photography and spirituality.
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