Weekend Portfolio: Akhira Montague - When My Eyes Water
Photography and Text by Akhira Montague
Photo Editing by Ari Adams
About the Images: When My Eyes Water is an exhibition consisting of 21 photographs that focus on what defines me. I titled the exhibition When My Eyes Water because whether your eyes are watering due to a sneeze, crying, laughing, or vomiting, water rolls down the eyeballs from your eyelids washing away any dirt or dust resulting in clearer vision.
Most of my work is driven by exploration. Exploration of place, myself, people I feel like I know, and further exploring what makes a photograph. The exhibition layout and structure draws inspiration from 2 exhibitions: Lorraine O'Grady, Body Is the Ground of My Experience, 2022 at Alexander Gray Associate and Martine Syms, Grio College, 2022 at the Hessel Museum at Bard. Lorraine O'Grady's Body Is the Ground of My Experience series was first exhibited in 1991 at INTAR Gallery. The work was first exhibited as smaller prints but as technology advanced over time the prints were enlarged and are now presented at the scale Lorraine always imagined. The body of work includes collaged black and white prints formed from the cutting and puzzling of black and white negatives. She wanted her performances to take on a more still form for "repeated viewing" while emphasizing how the body has been used as a medium for her creations but has also been used a political tool.
Martine Syms: Grio College includes works across many different digital mediums. The exhibition truly expressed ways of producing through Image and showcased an array of ways that images can be produced. Grio College is an exhibition that expresses how culture can be created and shifted through media.
When My Eyes Water was on view at the Pratt Institute Photography Gallery in Brooklyn, NY from October 10-28, 2022. You can find more work from Akhira, who was a 2018 Gordon Parks Foundation Scholar on her Instagram.
