Nona and I: Artist and Art Historian

Nona Faustine's White Shoes Series is a visual throwback to the treatment of black bodies, specifically the black female body, handled during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade at sites where humans were bought and sold in New York City. A visual reminder of the dark and unsettling history of our countries involvement in human trafficking, the enslavement of black bodies, global capitalism, and the truth of the wrongs that we continue to wrestle with today.

Nona Faustine, White Shoes Series, 2016

Symbolically, Nona fearlessly and without hesitation used her body to represent the brutality and mistreatment of men, women, and children in spaces around New York City that were former slave markets and burial sites, a haunting reminder that when we casually walk down Wall Street, one of the largest slave markets in the US, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49476247 we are treading on land that once held the tears of black bodies being traded and sold on the auction block and where white slaveholders stood to purchase the enslaved who built and helped to sustain their wealth. She knew exactly what story she wanted to tell through her photography. A story of resilience, a story of fortitude, an undeniable story of the power of the black, female body, for without her our culture, our heritage, our story would fail to exist.

Today, we celebrate Nona Faustine. We celebrate all that she gave us through her words, her photography, her wisdom, and her grace. We will carry her in our hears forevermore. Thank you, Nona, my sweet, dear friend. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/nona-faustine-photographer-dead-white-shoes-1234736316/

Nona Faustine Lecture, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 2016

Nona Faustine, Stacey Queen, Museum guest, Kehinde Wiley, 2016