DANI HARDY

 This work, titled "Descendants," is a self-portrait series referencing the relationship between the black body and nature. I want to show the beauty of blackness in rural nature. This series is a way to regain my agency with the land around me. “Descendants” is a self-initiated homecoming: I am grasping at my lost heritage within the landscape that was the epicenter of colonialism, slavery, racist policy, discrimination, and hatred. My history is embedded in the American lands, yet I can barely see or recognize myself. 

 4x5 wet plate photography was the primary photographic medium and technique to capture anything from everyday life to monumental occurrences. I find interest in the place of the wetplate in two vastly different points in black landownership: black people on white owners' lands and black landowners on their land during the height of black landownership. Black bodies free taking up space in nature is inherently an act of defiance to everything this country stands on and continues to act in accordance with. But since then, black landownership and rural land occupancy have steadily declined. 

 Moreover, connecting with nature is deemed a "white thing" in many black spaces for many reasons. We were not welcome or accepted in rural, natural areas. Yet, we cultivated and made this country the world power it has become through free, tortuous labor.