Photoshoot Purpose

The black and white photos are collected from the Oberlin archives depicting black campus life at Oberlin in the 1960s-1970s. The colored photos are from now. The text collage throughout this issue references the text:

"Black/ African American/Africana Studies at Oberlin: African American Student and community Development Program: African American Studies At Oberlin College"

This text laid the foundation of Africana studies at Oberlin and transformed the community to resemble the one we see now. In no way is this supposed to represent every African Diasporic Student in the world or at Oberlin. Rather this photoshoot is dedicated to showcasing the history of the African diaspora here at Oberlin and how far we have come.

Dreamscape 19

This was my first time attempting to express myself through visual art since middle school, but I’ve had collaging on my heart for some time now and really wanted to create what I was seeing in my head My maternal grandmother, Vera Ellis, whom I’m named after, is pictured in the center and I handpicked a white chrysanthemum to place on her photograph. She’s seen alongside Nina Simone, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Toni Cade Bambara, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and Lucille Clifton. The collage is meant to feel temporal and to convey a feeling of ancestral memory, nostalgia, and radical self-making. This piece is very meaningful to me and brought many different parts of who I am into one frame.