Shadow to Substance

Shadow to Substance - image header

July 27, 2021–February 27, 2022

The exhibition, Shadow to Substance (title taken from Sojourner Truth), is curated by Kimberly Williams, University of Florida Doctoral Candidate in English; Dr. Porchia Moore, University of Florida Assistant Professor, Museum Studies and Dr. Carol McCusker, Harn Curator of Photography. Shadow to Substance creates a chronological arc from the past to the present into the future using historical photographs from the Harn and Smathers Library collections and through the lens of Black photographers working today. It pictures histories of enslavement, Jim Crow Florida, the Great Migration, the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter. But it does so through images that expand ideas around healing, myth, intimacy, joy, resistance and rebirth. The exhibition, and its attending programs, will create a space for visitors to see and identify with uplifting narratives shaped by an invigorated portrait of Black life.

This exhibition is made possible by generous support from Dr. R. James Toussaint and Mrs. Sara Toussaint.

Image credits

Left: Sheila Pree Bright, The Rebirth of Us, 2020, archival inkjet print, Courtesy of the artist, Sheila Pree Bright

Right: Ayana V. Jackson, Moments of Sweet Reprieve, 2016, from the series Intimate Justice in the Stolen Moment, archival pigment print, Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim