Join ICP online for a conversation between artists and educators Jon Henry and Zora J. Murff around Henry’s exhibition Stranger Fruit, on view through January 12.
This discussion will take place online via Zoom. After registering for this event, you will be sent a Zoom link in advance of the talk to view the conversation.
About the Exhibition
Jon Henry’s Stranger Fruit is a response to the epidemic of police killings of Black men—his answer to the question “Who is next? Me? My brother? My friends? How do we protect these men?”
For several years, Henry traveled around the United States photographing Black mothers holding their sons in poses reminiscent of Renaissance paintings of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus following the crucifixion, as well as the mothers alone.
The project also includes writing by the mothers expressing their understanding that while they have not lost their sons, it is an ever-present possibility. Portrayed alone, the portraits reflect that potential absence and how, as Henry puts it, when “the protesters have gone home and the news cameras gone, it is the mother left. Left to mourn, to survive.”
Stranger Fruit was published as a book in 2022 and has been previously exhibited, but for this installation Henry went back into his archives, pulling together documents, maps, and other ephemera that trace the creation of the project. A generous act of transparency, this presentation allows visitors to see the creative and administrative work that goes into developing a long-term project.
About the Artists
Jon Henry is a visual artist working with photography and text, from Queens NY (resides in Brooklyn). His work reflects on family, sociopolitical issues, grief, trauma and healing within the African American community. His work has been published both nationally and internationally and exhibited in numerous galleries including Aperture Foundation, Smack Mellon, and BRIC among others. Known foremost for the cultural activism in his work, his projects include studies of athletes from different sports and their representations.
He was recently named one of The 30 New and Emerging Photographers for 2022, TIME Magazine NEXT100 for 2021. Included in the Inaugural 2021 Silver List. He recently was awarded the Arnold Newman Grant for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture in 2020, an En Foco Fellow, one of LensCulture's Emerging Artists and has also won the Film Photo Prize for Continuing Film Project sponsored by Kodak.
He currently serves as a faculty member at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York.
Zora J Murff (b. 1987) is an Oregon-based artist and educator interested in liberation from anti-Blackness. He uses his creative practice to explore the politics of racialization using provocative imagery and practices photography expansively, stretching it across disciplines to create associative or implied images. He strives to speak plainly about visual culture and its entanglement with race, capitalism, and other forms of hierarchical oppression.
Jon Henry, Untitled #36, North Minneapolis, MN © Jon Henry
