In Laila Annmarie Stevens’s photo series, Clayton Sisterhood Project, she explores the continuing legacy built by her sisters and nieces from New York, NY moving onto Clayton, North Carolina land together. Inspired by the historical branches of trees on southern terrain and longing for ancestral remembrance through the traditional family album. Stevens utilizes the 1960s Black Arts Movement principle of Self-Determination to preserve documentation of intergenerational Black Women figures across both state territories. North Carolina-based Black Feminist Poet Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs states “We knew we had to love the women we were and the women of our lineages, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, the women we never got to hold, the people coming after us and ourselves and the bridge and an invitation to all of it.” Crossing the boundaries of documentary through a conceptual approach, this visual preservation of love in its varying forms seeks to ensure that the nature of our existence, faces and names will prosper.
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Shantell Miller (21) stands alongside her grandmother Geneva Adams (73),
and mother Jennifer Searls (51) at their neighborhood park at Alley Pond in Bayside, Queens, New York.
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Miller's passed down family photographs.
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"I could probably count on one hand how many times I’ve even seen my mother cry. Crying means weakness. As I’ve grown up, I definitely feel like my mom has opened up more emotionally, but I do wish I saw it more as a kid so I could’ve learned how to healthily regulate my emotions and so that I could’ve understood her better."
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Bike Riding in Clayton, North Caroliina.
-
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Anais (18) in her aunt's home in Rego Park, Queens, New York.
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Janice Reynolds (74) is the oldest living woman descendant of the Stevens family. She gathers with the family's younger generations in the driveway of her childhood home in South Jamaica, Queens, New York.
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Grandmother Lillie Coleman (75) in her backyard home in Cambria Heights, Queens, New York.
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Their portraiture is informed by their passion for honoring marginalized youth voices and embracing the fullness of Black life through the creation of a digital safe space. Their work could be described as a raw and intimate perspective. Through her early work in youth organizations, she\u2019s incorporated image-making to envision a world of inclusion and power.\r<\/p><p>At 21 years old, Stevens is a contributor to The New York Times and has featured work in National Geographic, i-D, The Nation, and more. She is a student of the Eddie Adams Workshop Class of XXXIV and a member of Scope of Work, a talent agency for creatives aged 17-24, in New York, N.Y. Her artwork has been shown internationally in exhibitions in London and the U.S., including \u201cCome Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering\u201d at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, Harlem, New York, and Goodyear Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina.<\/p>","long_bio_raw":"Laila Annmarie Stevens (b. 2001) is a Black Queer Photographer and Visual Artist from Queens, NY currently pursuing her BFA at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Their portraiture is informed by their passion for honoring marginalized youth voices and embracing the fullness of Black life through the creation of a digital safe space. Their work could be described as a raw and intimate perspective. Through her early work in youth organizations, she\u2019s incorporated image-making to envision a world of inclusion and power.\r\n\r\nAt 21 years old, Stevens is a contributor to The New York Times and has featured work in National Geographic, i-D, The Nation, and more. 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