Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History

08/08/2025

Dodge & Burn Panel Discussion: Decolonizing the Photobook – Moderated by Qiana Mestrich
with Hernease Davis, Keisha Scarville, & Kim Weston
Saturday, August 9
11am – 12:30pm
RSVP link in bio

Join us for a dynamic conversation with photographers Keisha Scarville, Hernease Davis, and Kim Weston, all featured in the landmark book Decolonization and Diversity in Contemporary Photography: The Dodge & Burn Interviews. Moderated by the book’s author, Qiana Mestrich, this panel delves into the art of the photobook. Each artist will present influential books that have shaped their practice before discussing their own unique publishing experiences. The conversation will touch upon themes of diasporic history, healing and self-care, and multigenerational artistic legacy. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore the power of the photobook with leading voices in contemporary photography.

02/25/2025

Preorder the Dodge & Burn Photography Book!

Get 20% Discount with Code 25AFLY1* on the Routledge website, offer valid until June 30, 2025

https://www.routledge.com/Decolonization-and-Diversity-in-Contemporary-Photography-The-Dodge--Burn-Interviews/Mestrich/p/book/9781138955929

Dear Dodge & Burn Readers,

The new Dodge & Burn photography book is finally here and available for preorder directly from Routledge (use discount code 25AFLY1* for 20% off, expires June 30th) with books shipping after March 7, 2025.

It’s not the most ideal time to launch anything related to DEI in this country, but this photobook has been years in the making. It is an essential endeavor and tribute to the careers of the 35+ photographers featured.

This updated collection of photographer interviews features first-hand accounts from both self-taught and formally-educated photographers across a diversity of ages and photo genres (landscape, portrait, fine art, documentary) as well as cultural backgrounds.

The Dodge & Burn book was always intended to be a textbook, companion to photography history classes, so it’s ideal for university, undergraduate (BA) and graduate (MFA) photo programs everywhere.

Featured photographers in the book include: Elia Alba, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Sheila Pree Bright, Nakeya Brown, Albert C, Neil Chowdhury, Gerald Cyrus, Hernease Davis, Nona Faustine, André França, Lola Flash, Russell Frederick, Myra Greene, Eric J Henderson, Chester Higgins Jr., Janna Ireland, Andre Jackson, Priya Kambli, Marcia Michael, Isabel Löfgren and Patricia Gouvêa, Ayana V Jackson, Carlos Alvarez Montero, Jaime Permuth, Aïda Muluneh, Eileen Perrier, Gabriel Garcia-Roman, Justine Reyes, Kalen Roach, Keisha Scarville, Jamel Shabazz, Manjari Sharma, Camille Seaman, Artutor Soto and Kim Weston — plus more artists featured in 7 critical essays that I’ve written in the past decade, republished in the book.

BOOK COVER PHOTO: Nakeya Brown

06/13/2024

New article by for , link in bio.

Photo by Lola Flash: Felli, 2022. From surmise series. Courtesy of Jenkins Johnson Gallery.

Contemporary women and female-identifying photographers are activating a new form of documenting that is led by content and context. Grounded in extensive research, they construct a matrix of intersectional ideas, histories, realities, and considerations. A powerful impact of their work is their intentional approach to

05/10/2024

Listening to this podcast with Legacy Russell and Fred Moten on Russell’s new book, “Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us”.

Link in bio to listen 🎧

Black Meme and Russell’s first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, are both published by Verso.

05/03/2024

Congratulations ❤️ on your solo show at !

Beautifully titled, “Flowering Wound”, this show is an explosion of meticulously printed 35mm photographs taken between 2014 and 2023.

A true New York/Mexico family album, go see this show!

On view now through June 12, 2024.

03/10/2024

Ingrid Pollard, an acclaimed photographer associated with the British Black Arts Movement of the 1980s, has won the Hasselblad Award, the world’s biggest photography prize, with a cash purse of more than $196,

03/09/2024

Congrats , you’ve moved a thousand obstacles to get here!

Go see Nona Faustine’s solo show “White Shoes” at The Brooklyn Museum on view now through July 7th.

02/29/2024

I’m excited to offer 4 complimentary tickets to photographer Janna Ireland’s virtual talk with Stacey MehrFar on Art + Motherhood this Friday, March 1 from 1-2:30PM EST - hosted by .phlo.

Comment below or DM if you want a ticket!

I interviewed Janna on the Dodge & Burn blog back in 2014 after having just completed her MFA degree and since then her photography career has blossomed to include an acclaimed photobook, Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View — a photographic exploration of the work of the first licensed Black architect west of the Mississippi River.

Ireland’s mid-career survey, True Story Index, is on view now through June 2nd at The Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara.

Those of you who are artist mamas, don’t miss this chance to hear from Janna about how she manages art and motherhood.

12/03/2023

12/02/2023

Some verbal gems from last week’s talk at with Keisha Scarville in conversation with Pamela Sneed celebrating the book launch of Scarville’s “lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound” available now via - see link in bio!

My thumbs couldn’t type as fast as my ears could hear her words, but Keisha made lovely points about the archive “as the space that’s alive with us presently.”

Then Pamela dropped this about how “Poetry doesn’t come from the brain...” 🤎

“I love the way in which language is fully celebrated in poetry...” - Keisha said in response to Pamela’s question about the role of poetry in the book/photographs

Other insights from Keisha around her work and photo practice:

*What are the gestures that lead us to finding liberation in the body?

*Curiosity around the impulse to leave, to move somewhere else…

And these great observations around collage:

*Allows multiple narratives to protrude, to pull all of these things orbiting into one space.

*As a strategy/space to break the “fixity” of the image, a way to reinform and reconfigure.

*Collage is always going to be the tool that allows us to rethink time.

The act of breaking and ripping is a gesture that can release so much.