Photographer Laurent Chevalier is seeking to shine a light on positive black experiences in her new photo series “We Are Joy.”
The portrait series consists of pictures of black millennials who were asked to tell a story about how being black positively impacted their lives. “I was intrigued by the idea of black joy in story form, because when someone tells a story you relate to, you can’t help but be impacted by it,” Chevalier explained to Huffington Post.
She continued, “Black joy is contagious, especially when you can relate to it. Then adding to that our culture of oral history, I thought it would be a great way to present this idea.”
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Read more about the project according to Laurent’s site, Chevalier Creative:
In America, Blackness is a burden. It is a historical weight that seems to reinvent itself at every turn. This burden is laid on our people by ignorance or maliciousness, and with this often comes negative associations with Blackness. However, this weight, and this pressure has galvanized a culture. It has given a group of people with varying interests and ideas a common tie connecting them all. There are beautiful shared experiences in which the root of the beauty in that moment is Blackness. There are moments that can only truly be appreciated through the lens of that culture. This February, we celebrate those moments by sharing images each day of the month, from “We Are Joy”. “We Are Joy” is a portrait series utilizing the power of storytelling to share memories of the beauty of black lives, and to create imagery indicative of that beauty.
