Akea Brionne Brown

Special Interest Category Winner: Race

United States

Series: Black Picket Fences

Black Picket Fences is a photographic series encompassing environmental portraiture and documentary photographs of contemporary black households and those who inhabit them. The work has transitioned into a self-portrait and a reminder that the black experience in America is not homogenous, nor is it accidental. The series, a product of my upbringing in a predominantly white suburb, began as a personal critique of the suburban landscape as a traditionally “white space,” in relation to the formation of black identity and performativity. It became important to examine the history of housing segregation, suburbanization in the post-war periods, and the lack of ethnoracial diversity within suburban landscapes. As a result, this body of work aims to highlight an often overlooked group in contemporary American culture: the black, suburban middle class. Black Picket Fences seeks to highlight, dissolve, and reject the racist construction of the suburban landscape by showing blacks who inhabit a space that was never intended to benefit them.