SEEING VOICES:
COMMUNITY (UN)HEARD

In the summer of 2020 The Light Factory, in partnership with School of Good Citizenship, hosted a free virtual workshop created to celebrate the diverse and meaningful stories that make us who we are. Led by Charlotte artists Renee Cloud, de’Angelo Dia, Julio Gonzalez, and Héctor Vaca, the work created by the leading artists and workshop participants is on view below.

Scroll down to view the exhibition!

     

de’Angelo Dia
CHARLOTTE, NC


Renee Cloud
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

Exploring toy photography and propaganda.

Jack Flowers
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

American systems of power sustain themselves through constructed ideas about race, a fact made plain in the field reports used by the United States government to institutionalize the practice of redlining. Racist ideas typewritten about Charlotte in 1937, together with images from Charlotte’s Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, bear witness to the fact that racial justice in America will not be delivered through systems built to protect and serve white dominant culture, and we must reimagine those systems entirely.

Julio Gonzalez
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

Gonzalez cites the simple question “What if?” as a cornerstone of his creativity and practice, a way to approach his ideas from different sides and explore them to the fullest. He hopes viewers of his work will find themselves asking the same question and rediscovering their sense of interconnectedness, curiosity, and childlike wonder.

Megan Driving Hawk
QUEEN CREEK, AZ

 

Visions of Motherhood: Pregnancy & Postpartum Experiences in the COVID-19 Pandemic is a series of poems and double exposures created from written interviews and virtual photo shoots. This documentation attempts to make individual experiences more visible so viewers can see themselves and/or learn about an experience they are not familiar with.

Susan Hillyard
SANTA CRUZ, CA

 

These images document the conversion of the Alameda Naval Base in Alameda, CA. It has been converted into low-income housing, gyms, breweries and wineries, higher-income housing, and a museum.

Lisa Howell
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

As I march through the streets of Charlotte with my camera, I consider my place as a white person in these marches. What is my role in this space? Where is your place?

Jinna Kim
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

On-screen representation matters is a 15-minute repeating loop of three short films, showcasing diversity and social justice in delightful ways accompanied by original music.

Malik Norman
MINERAL SPRINGS, NC

 

Visual Waters of Mineral Springs:
On [the] line

This iteration of Visual Waters of Mineral Springs, Malik J. Norman’s BFA senior thesis, pays homage to the traditional unseated land of the Catawba and Waxhaw people (Mineral Springs, NC). This project embarks on building a photographic archive of Mineral Springs, North Carolina, spotlighting Western Union Park, a historical southern Black community. With light, the work aims to retain the land and reignite the culture of the rural Black realm.

Eva Osuch
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

I’ve explored the theme: Downfall of the University City Area—Covid-19 Effect
by adding another dimension to Black and White photos. To see buildings decaying
have evoked feelings of frustration and uncertainty. I felt like I needed to change
my focus, break from the negative thoughts, and add some hope/optimism,
thus the watercolor splashes.

Michael Robinson
GREENSBORO, NC

 

Blackout NC scheduled a demonstration rally one Sunday in downtown Greensboro, NC shortly following George Floyd’s murder. The rally supported Black Lives Matter. The Seeing Voices, Community (Un)heard workshop was instrumental in helping me document what I saw and could embrace related to the Black Lives Matter movement and the many faces of Black Lives Matter.

Dustin Shores
NORFOLK, VA

 

Making Gestures
2019-2020

Images from Making Gestures were made in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2019. During that year, my iPhone camera became my diary, a proof of existence, a way to face the world, to point at something, and hold steady. In this iteration, I recently experimented with blackout poetry on my images and found the process cathartic. It was a physical and visual manifestation of healing. What felt like an adolescent gesture opened me up to the concept of creation through erasure.

Héctor Vaca
CHARLOTTE, NC

 

Members of Tenant Organizing Resource Center (TORC) organized to force their slumlord to repair the property he abandoned for several years. This is an issue that plagues working families all over our country. Together, we can ensure that all families have access to quality and affordable housing.

Members of the Senior Warriors Action Network (SWAN) have been organizing to ensure that seniors are treated with respect and have the resources they need to live quality lives. Here, Gilma is standing to demand that Big Pharma does not raise the prices of medicines that seniors need to survive and live quality lives. Gilma is a real Senior Warrior.

Molly Wilbanks
CHARLOTTE, NC

Mike’s Story. Honoring the life, the mystery, and the pain of an unstoppable man who lived with Cerebral Palsy for 50 years.

Mike’s Story

Born with Cerebral Palsy, Michael Tucker would share his birth story at times. How the nurses didn’t clean him up because they thought he wouldn’t live. And how the doctor walked in and said, “Clean that baby!”

Mike was born and raised in Charlotte and lived with his mom until she passed in 1995. He moved into a group home then, where he soon met Ross. Ross worked at the group home as a social worker. Because Mike was so active in his mind but needed specific attendance to be able to live as he wanted, his case manager recommended that Ross and Mike try out Assisted Family Living in an apartment. So Ross and Mike became roommates. Mike was 32 years old. Almost immediately, Mike surprised Ross one morning by adjusting himself just so, and pushing himself out of his bed all alone, and into his own wheelchair. There is a first time for everything.

Mike passed suddenly this year at age 49. He always had a deep joy for life, loved to talk about God, and was thrilled to be working on this project together, over the summer of 2020. I married Ross in 2010 and lived with Mike for ten years, and I am honored to share part of his life story now.