They, too, are America:
The Faces Of Black Lives Matter Protests In New York City
(after I, too by Langston Hughes)
They, too, are America is a story of opening your soul in the times of mandatory mask wearing, and coming together to fight injustice in the age of social distancing. The project consists of portraits of over a hundred protesters taken on the streets of New York during 13 different events in summer-fall of 2020 in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Lisa Pavlova is originally from Russia and has been an active participant of anti-government protests in her home country. She left Russia in 2018 because she got tired of the unjust system and not being able to create the change. 2020 was her first encounter with the protest movement (especially the civil rights protest) in the US.
The project started as a tool to show people in Russia that BLM protesters are not a marginalized group of looters as Russian state media tried to show. Quickly it became an ode to the bravery and inspiration behind the BLM movement.
Studio aesthetics (including using a portable background) of the imagery and the thoughtful outsider position of the author turned They, too, are America into an encyclopedia of people and issues that sparked the US in 2020.
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