PhD Candidate, Photographer, Filmmaker

My research centers on the intersection of visual and cultural studies, Black geographies, and photographic and film production, with a focus on how racial regimes of representation are shaped through spatial-aesthetic techniques. In my work I read across a range of visual projects and mediums, including journalistic photography, urban design and planning, architecture, and film.

Beyond adjudicating the value of visual representations and deliberating on their intended and unintended cultural meanings and discursive consequences, I investigate the technical construction of images and spatial aesthetics. I interrogate the power of aesthetic projects that not only attempt to represent the world but to actively structure the way we see and understand social problems, historical narratives, and the past, present, and possible futures of people and places, and their relationships to one another.

As a filmmaker and photographer, I extend this scholarly work into community-based documentary filmmaking and documentary portraiture – acts of spatial memory preservation and promises on the future of the places in which my East Bay Area community partners reside.