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TYAHRA ANGUS

She/her

Boston based photographer/artist Tyahra Angus started AfroCentered Media in 2015 and has been collecting and publishing photographs that increase the representation of Black/Brown people in our media, particularly Black women, even more particularly Black Queer people like herself. She received a B.A. in English with a minor in Africana Studies and a concentration in Black Queer Literature and Art from Smith College and a MFA in Visual Arts from Lesley University's College of Art and Design. Her mission through AfroCentered Media is not only to increase representation, these images prevent the present from being lost to the past.

Website: afrocenteredmedia.com

Artist Statement

One does not need to lay hands on materials to reflect ownership, similarly to hidden narratives of Black Queer life through vernacular, analog photography displaying a new mode of belonging. Photographs are my favorite way of telling time and all human beings truly have are our memories. The intimacy of my images on display reward audiences for their familiarity with the content, as well as give unfamiliar audiences an introduction to photographic work featuring Black and Black Queer subjects. The work I have created over the years unveils my effort to make visible the unseeing of my community through installation, polaroids, fabric transfers, and prints. My installations and contributions to exhibits invite an audience to interact and shed the distance that digital photography produces through this empowering gesture of display. My work is an offering which amplifies and strengthens the medium, a joyous laying of claim to a Black Queer
narrative.


Project Description:

Research: I would particularly use this funding, not only to gain access to some of thesepaywalled institutions, it would also improve my art making process by being prepared toprint and submit to proposals that only offer travel stipends but not for the creation of the art.

Website Maintenance: My website has been designed and kept up to date by me. I haveloved the idea of altering it so that it becomes a clear archive of events, exhibits, andportraits of people that would be maintained and open for public usage for Black historiansand creatives. I have researched how that works on Square Space to see where thedownloads go and where the photos are used. I am still formulating the final design so thatit is less about my work, and more about marking a place and time.

Publishing: This freedom to grow my archive will also extend the reach of my website,leading me to my larger aspiration of publishing collections of my work and anthologies ofthe events I have shot highlighting the artists and organizers that I have had the greatfortune of being able to collaborate with over the years under the title Afrocentered Media.