Dome (detail), Lola Flash, 2019. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist © Lola Flash
Looking Forward: Lola Flash and Sadie Barnette in Conversation
GETTY CENTER
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The Kamoinge Workshop is a collective of Black photographers formed in New York in 1963. Its legacy continues today with members upholding the group’s mission to honor, document, preserve, and represent the history, culture, and lived experiences of the African diaspora with integrity and respect. During this conversation, Kamoinge member and photographer Lola Flash talks with multimedia artist Sadie Barnette about their unique approaches to history, our current moment, and Afrofuturism. Visit the exhibition Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop, closing October 9, 2022.
Speakers
Sadie Barnette’s multimedia practice illuminates her family history as it mirrors a collective history of repression and resistance in the United States. Barnette holds a long and deep fascination with the personal and political value of kin. Her adept materialization of archival materials rises above a static reverence for the past; by inserting herself into the retelling, she offers a history that is alive. Her use of abstraction, glitter, and the fantastical summons another dimension of human experience and imagination. Recent projects include the reclamation of a 500-page FBI surveillance file amassed on her father during his time with the Black Panther Party and her interactive reimagining of his bar—San Francisco’s first Black-owned gay bar.
Working at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics for more than four decades, photographer Lola Flash’s work challenges stereotypes as well as gender, sexual, and racial preconceptions. An active member of ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Flash was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. Their art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a lifelong commitment to visibility, and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of color worldwide. Flash's work is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, and the National African American Museum of History and Culture. They are a proud member of the Kamoinge Collective, and on the Board of Queer Art.