faculty
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
faculty
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
As a documentary and portrait photographer, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn focuses her inquiries on the cultures and identities within the global Black diaspora with a special interest in memory. Her practice, spanning 20 years, includes exhibition organizing and essay writing. She is frequently on assignment for The New York Times and has been commissioned by The Guardian, Le Monde, National Geographic, NPR, Vogue and The New Yorker.
Barrayn’s monograph, We Are Present: 2020 in Portraits, was published with the support of Magnum Foundation in 2023. She is also co-author of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, the first anthology in nearly 30 years that highlights photography produced by women of African descent.
She is currently the guest curator for the 2023-24 academic year at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery at Harvard University. A native of Brooklyn, New York, her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Open Society Foundation and The International Women’s Media Foundation. She holds a M.A. in Art and Public Policy from New York University’ Tisch School of the Arts.
Image: Malik J. Glover
Barrayn’s monograph, We Are Present: 2020 in Portraits, was published with the support of Magnum Foundation in 2023. She is also co-author of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, the first anthology in nearly 30 years that highlights photography produced by women of African descent.
She is currently the guest curator for the 2023-24 academic year at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery at Harvard University. A native of Brooklyn, New York, her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Open Society Foundation and The International Women’s Media Foundation. She holds a M.A. in Art and Public Policy from New York University’ Tisch School of the Arts.
Image: Malik J. Glover