Black Joy and the Splendour of Community: A Reflection on “As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic”

I take my time with art exhibitions. Carefully, I explore the images that grace the walls and the objects that surround me. I feel blessed, basking in the glory of a visual bounty. Walking through the Art Museum at the University of Toronto–encountering “As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic”–proves to be no exception. I feel as though I have suddenly stumbled into a family reunion. I’m surrounded by portraits, class photos, and snapshots: generations of photographs that would fill up albums and mantles. Emanating from these walls is the splendour of community, bringing me an immense sense of connection, a phenomenon I can best describe as Black Joy.

“As We Rise”began life as the Wedge Collection: a private collection of photography curated by Toronto-based dentist Dr. Kenneth Montague. Since 1997, Montague and the Wedge have been devoted to photo-based artmaking revolving around Black identity and the African diaspora. Early childhood interests in art and photography were sparked by family visits to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Montague’s parents would often travel to various museums and exhibitions south of the border from his home in Windsor, ON. These experiences influenced his dedication to collecting art and uplifting the careers of emerging Black artists. Today, the walls of Dr. Montague’s home–filled with images by James Van Der Zee, J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, and Renée Mathews—showcase individual lives as well as a collective spirit. Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that “As We Rise” feels like a family photo album.

In 2021, Dr. Montague’s private collection was brought to the public fore with As We Rise: a beautiful publication featuring 142 photographic reproductions, as well as writings, an interview by Liz Ikiriko, responses by Dr. Deborah Willis, Dr. Julie Crooks, Letticia Cosbert Miller, and many more. Despite a sense of the photo album permeating the book, it feels at the same time like a grand oral tradition of storytelling bound in hardcover. As Teju Cole inquires in the book’s preface, “So why is this—album—the word I have heard the pictures whisper?”¹  It is the balance between intention and ease in a photo album that creates the visual language of a family history. “As We Rise” feels like a big family gathering filled with the voices of an awesome group of relatives, including Yannis Davy Guibinga, Joy Gregory, Jorian Charlton, Richard Mark Rawlins, Ebony G. Patterson, and Anthony Barboza. Bound together, their individual but interwoven narratives take the viewer on a journey that reshapes and reimagines Black family, culture, and history. 

Following the outstanding success of the As We Rise publication, the Wedge Collection’s photographs were exhibited in 2022 at the University of Toronto’s downtown campus. The exhibition celebrates the Black community through the diversity of its photographs and their ability to challenge our gaze. This disruption comes through the collection’s representation of Black Joy and its abundance of manifestations in the little parts of life. In recognizing and celebrating the ordinary, these photographs allow their subjects to take back control of the narrative. While Black Joy can be seen as a form of celebration, here it is also a means of resistance. As Adreinne Waheed, photographer and author of Black Joy and Resistance, points out, “Resistance manifests itself in different ways, and so does joy. Both can be expressed through dress, through movement, your stance, your body language, your eyes, your gaze.”² “As We Rise” offers a vantage point into both the joy and resistance of the Black community, presenting a collective story of stability, belonging, pride, and pleasure.

The exhibition moves the eye towards objectivity, allowing its artists’ subjects more agency over their portrayal. The Black Joy expressed in “As We Rise” counteracts the negative perceptions of Black life presented in mainstream media and pop culture. As Teju Cole explains, “Too often in the larger culture, we see images of Black people in attitudes of despair, pain, or brutal isolation. As We Rise gently refuses that.”³ Toronto-based, Nigerian Canadian artist and curator Liz Ikiriko assisted in the facilitation of As We Rise as well as the Wedge Collection. When unravelling the historical utilisation of photography as a tool for documentation and surveillance in colonised territories, Ikiriko offered the following: 

Power appears differently in these pages and in the Wedge Collection. For the subjects and lineages of dominated countries, control is not motivated by an insatiable consumptive desire for land or culture; it is simply an embrace of inherent free will of the self. The driving force is one of love. For African people and those of the diaspora, histories of dominations meant that lessons of fundamental self-worth and embodied knowledge required concealment—a quiet vibration that is visible throughout the photographs. As a viewer, we are actively immersed and therefore engaged in the presentation/exhibition as part of the installation.⁴

Walking through the exhibition’s rooms, the photographs provide a full spectrum of people whose individual voice—their artistic lens—helps to shape a space that is powerful and radically self-affirming.

Situated at the entrance of the exhibition, Couple in Raccoon Coats–a photo by icon of visual storytelling James Van Der Zee–feels like a logical starting point for discussing the weight and power of “As We Rise.” This small print speaks volumes. Dated 1932, the image is a tilted angle of Harlem brownstone stoops against which are set the shiny curves of a Cadillac roadster. Smack dab in the centre of the image, on the passenger’s side of their vehicle, are a Black couple wearing densely-textured raccoon coats. Here you can feel the power of the gaze as the man, sitting relaxed in the passenger’s side, looks directly at the viewer. Contemporary African-American artist, historian, and educator Deborah Willis presents an interesting perspective on the Van Der Zee photograph and its influence:

I envision this image shared with family members in the city—the waves of Black immigrants from the Caribbean and migrants from the rural South. I imagine that Van Der Zee’s photographs forever changed the visual self-image of the people who metamorphosed into fashionable big-city dwellers, the degradations of the past seemingly eliminated from their present lives.⁵

Van Der Zee’s portraiture brought dignity to Black Americans through its undeniable ability to capture the essence of the subject with respect and tenderness—redefining the Black American experience with honesty and creativity. The well-to-do couple poses with a look of grace and confidence. This image celebrates and acknowledges the extraordinary within the ordinary; this could be the earliest example of Black Joy in the history of photography.

Van Der Zee used black and white imagery to highlight and uphold the experiences of his Black subjects, whether the subject’s gaze was direct, as in Couple in Raccoon Coats, or averted and redirected, as in Jean-Michel Basquiat (dated 1982). In this portrait, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat sits hunched over at the edge of his seat, head leaning on his hand and looking off to the side. A seemingly innocuous Siamese cat lays on Basquiat’s lap, staring directly into the camera’s lens. Both Black male artists in a white-dominated industry, Van Der Zee ensures that Basquiat remains in control of the image. Basquiat’s vulnerability and discomfort in front of the camera are ensured by both Van Der Zee’s honest gaze and the cat’s menacing one. This seemingly simple portrait captures the notoriously elusive Basquiat and his relationship to his world, as well as the camaraderie and care between both artists.

Johnson Donatus Aihumekeokhai Ojeikere, also known as J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, presents, in much the same way as Van Der Zee’s Jean-Michel Basquiat, the importance of unconventional photographic points of view. J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere was a Nigerian photographer known for showcasing the unique and ephemeral hairstyles found in his home country of Nigeria. The portraits famously focus on the back and side views of the subjects, rarely showing the subjects’ faces or bodies below the neck. The lack of a direct gaze here does not debase the subject but rather has the power to expand the viewer’s understanding and appreciation of their beauty. These unique ways of seeing foster in the viewer a more complex perspective and offer an alternative mode of connection. “As We Rise” features two photographs from J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere’s Hairstyles series, “Untitled (Aja Nloso Family)” and “Untitled (Mikpuk Eba),” both from 1974. Showcasing the complexity and intricacy of traditional Nigerian braids and knots, the Hairstyles portraits transcend the conventional photographic gaze. In these images, the faces are not concealed but are relieved from the focus of their portraits, which instead privileges the subjects’ perfectly designed and executed hairstyles. Each image gives only a fragment of the subject’s features; the crease of a smile, a glimpse of an eye, the nape of a neck: suggestions of their strength and humanity, which the artist allows their hairstyles to represent in full.

J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere was not only documenting beautiful stylistic designs but also highlighting the tradition of oral storytelling and the power of ritual. Ojeikere upholds and honours the beauty of Black hair and, in doing so, Black Joy. He reminds us that there is more to beauty than the notion of aesthetics. Throughout the world, Black hairstyles and their rituals of self care are a mode of self expression and pride. The goal of Ojeikere’s Hairstyles series was to preserve Nigeria’s rich hairstyle traditions at a time when they were under threat of Eurocentrism and colonialism, but in its creation Ojeikere also documented the unique personalities, strong familial ties, and formidable lives of his subjects. 

Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist Renée Mathews explores the history and social culture surrounding Black hair through her creation of upcycled wigs made out of denim threads. As We Rise features Mathews’ 2018 work DW3, a black-and-white portrait featuring a layered, multi-coloured, intricately styled wig. Similarly to Ojeikere’s work, the photograph focuses on the hairstyle and not the identity of the subject. The head is framed with a stark grey background while the fibres lay softly on the model’s bare back. Mathews’ denim wigs remind us that “hair is an integral part of Black culture and identity.”⁶ Unjust policing and shame is embedded in the history of Black hair, so it has been invaluable to the Black community to find joy, creativity, and community in the rituals of hair design and maintenance. Mathews proposes, “In an ideal future, we are free and safe to express ourselves as individuals and have moved away from standardised Eurocentric beauty.”⁷ Mathews’ denim wigs offer an environmentally friendly and healthy alternative to toxic synthetic products while still providing aesthetically relevant and attractive styles. 

“As We Rise” thoughtfully forms bridges between the photographer, their subjects, and audiences, creating connections of trust and intergenerational memory. The terracotta exhibition wall, a visual signifier carried over from the publication’s deep orange ribbon and endpages, triggers images of sunsets bursting into the evening sky. I fix my gaze on the wall and am reminded of effervescent celebration. As Liz Ikiriko aptly expresses:

Loving, joyous depictions of Blackness are radical when media are more likely to broadcast and publish denigrating depictions of Black life […] Spaces to dance, to pray, to sing and to share leisure time are not discretionary, they are necessary. There is a deep catharsis in witnessing these joyous, sweaty, sexy, unguarded moments reflected in the photographs created in the community and collected here.⁸

Bringing these photographs into the public sphere, the exhibition allows us to embrace Black Joy. Each image offers its own story of family, culture, and history to be shared, envisioned, and embodied.

Angela Walcott is a freelance writer and arts educator. She explored issues concerning sustainability and waste management as a 2022 Creative in Residence with Ontario Culture Days. She has participated in exhibitions at YYZ Gallery, Propeller Gallery and Nuit Blanche. Her writing appears in the anthology Black Writers Matter.

1. Teju Cole, “Letter to a Friend,” As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, ed. Denise Wolff (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2021), 6.
2. Manna Zel, “Adreinne Waheed photographs Black joy and resistance across the diaspora,” i-D, August 12, 2020.
3. Teju Cole, “Letter to a Friend,” As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, 7.
4. Liz Ikiriko, “Power,” As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, ed. Denise Wolff (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2021), 134.
5. Deborah Willis, As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, ed. Denise Wolff (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2021), 79.
6. Renée Mathews, “Projects: Denim Wigs,” accessed January 20, 2023, https://www.reneemathews.com/denim-wigs.
7. Mathews, “Projects: Denim Wigs.”
8. Liz Ikiriko, “Community,” As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, ed. Denise Wolff (New York: Aperture Foundation, 2021), 12.

This article is published in issue 39.3 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue