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Thursday Open Thread: African American Photographers Part 2

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Good Morning POU!

Today’s feature is a reprint of a New York Times feature on photographer Endia Beal from 2015.

Young, Black, Female and Envisioning Corporate Life

Endia Beal is a North Carolina-based artist who uses photography and video to explore conversations about race and diversity in the corporate setting. Ms. Beal, 30, received her M.F.A. in photography from Yale Art School and currently works as an associate professor of photography at Winston-Salem State University and as director of the university’s Diggs Gallery. Her most notable portrait series, “Can I Touch It,” presents white women in corporate attire wearing traditionally black hairstyles. In 2015, Ms. Beal was one of 11 photographers to present their work at the National Geographic Photography Seminar.

In her series, “Am I What You’re Looking For?,” Ms. Beal focuses on young African-American women who are transitioning from the academic world to the corporate setting, capturing their struggles and uncertainties on how to best present themselves in the professional work space. Her conversation with Whitney Richardson, producer of the Lens blog (New York Times), has been condensed and edited.

Q. How did “Am I What You’re Looking For?” come about?
A. I am interested in the stories of the invisible, the stories we haven’t heard yet. The new series, “Am I What You’re Looking For?,” explores those new stories, those individuals that don’t necessarily get a chance to vocalize all of their feelings, and all of their emotions, and what they’re going through. The work that I create does not necessarily answer questions; the work that I create poses questions, “What if?” What if my subjects Sabrina and Katrina (Slide 2) came into your office space and this is how they looked? What if Jayia wore her dress that is white and you saw the tattoo on her hand? How would you deal with that? Knowing that you may be making a decision based on how she looks and not what’s on her résumé.

Most of my work does just that, it poses those questions. It forces the viewer to think: to think about being young, to think about being ambitious, to think about the idea of having to be exactly who you want to be in this kind of muted space, in this long hallway that you have to walk.

Q. Is the hallway in the backdrop you used a real office space?
A. The backdrop I used is at Yale, in the I.T. department where I interned while in graduate school. I was thinking of artists like James Van Der Zee in the Harlem Renaissance, and how he took those beautiful backdrops from some villa in Paris, but you were in Harlem. You put the backdrop up and it becomes a completely different space.

“It is a benefit for corporate America to have diverse perspectives that align with the company’s strategy in order to gain a broader market share and truly embrace diversity and inclusion.” — Jessica, 28. North Carolina.

“It is a benefit for corporate America to have diverse perspectives that align with the company’s strategy in order to gain a broader market share and truly embrace diversity and inclusion.” — Jessica, 28. North Carolina.  Endia Beal

I decided that I wanted to photograph the young women in the space that they grew up in. I wanted them to feel completely themselves. Then I told them, “I want you to wear what you would love to wear to an interview.” And then I asked the women to envision they were waiting for an interview. What does that feel like being in that space, knowing that you have to prepare for a performance? Knowing that what you look like may not necessarily fit the ideal choice? Some of them were like, “I’m going to be confident regardless,” and you could feel that energy. Other women were like, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” It’s a moment of uncertainty, of having to think about the future when you don’t even know the possibilities.

Q. Where did you find these girls and what was the process of getting to their homes?
A. Most of them were based in North Carolina. It was like going from college to home — even if it was an hour drive or a four-hour drive to their homes. In that trip heading to their homes, they asked me a lot of questions about interviews, like what to expect after they graduated. The girls were aged from 18 to 22, freshmen, sophomores or seniors in college. Many of them are students at Winston-Salem State. They referred other women that they thought would be great.
Q. What was the process of coordinating this?
A. I had no clear vision of what the house was going to look like. Then there were things they wanted to add to the picture. They’d say: “Listen, can we add this photo of us? Can we add this picture of my grandmother? Because it’s really reflective of me.” So it became this collaboration in a lot of ways. That’s why I left the sides. I wanted you to know it was a backdrop.
Q. What was it like for you working in the I.T. department at Yale? What did the space pictured in the backdrop mean to you?
A. The space in that backdrop is the foundation of everything that I’ve done with my art moving forward. I’d walk down that hallway and feel completely uncomfortable. I felt like “the other.” My hair was big and red, and I walked down that hallway every day to get to my desk. And seeing the eyes, and the glares, and the “I don’t know about this” looks that you get every day walking into this space where it’s mostly white men. I was probably the only minority on the floor. I often felt like a spectacle.

I eventually became much more in control, realizing that if I was going to confront it, I had to confront it head on. We’re going to talk about it. I think about that hallway as the beginning and the foundation of what I’m making right now. And I thought it was important for the girls to stand in front of it because this is what they’re going to do when they graduate and go into the world.

Q. Do you remember your interview process for getting that internship? What was your preparation process?
A. I was wearing slacks, a blue blouse, and straightened my hair for the interview. I knew if I went to the interview with the Afro, based on my experience, I wasn’t going to get the job.
Q. Was that just a personal thought or did someone tell you that?
A. It was what I was told. Wearing my hair in an Afro, I would never get the job because that’s not professional. I was told this by career counselors in college, older women in the field who were telling me what’s considered professional. So, for the interview, I had on small earrings, a little blouse, khakis and my hair was straight to the bone. I was 25 years old.
Q. Do you think it’s simply a hair thing that makes you feel like you stand out in the corporate space?
A. It’s everything. It’s from the way that you talk, it’s what you have on. You almost have to mute yourself in order to fit into this space. And sadly, the girls have been told that they have to do the same thing.
Q. How did you get into photography?
A. When I was in high school, my first love was shot and killed. I found art as a vehicle to deal with it. At that time, I just wanted to be alone. Through art I found a voice. I realized that his death was tragic, but what was even more tragic was how he was painted in the media as this kind of thug, as a criminal, but he was really in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He was a poet, he was an artist, he was a lover of music. I realized that the people that I loved around me were dying senselessly, and their personal stories weren’t being told. No one knew who they were as individuals, no one knew how they lived. I started doing photography because it became an easier way to tell that story. I was going places where people were afraid to go and I was photographing people you were normally afraid to photograph. I learned a lot about myself — I had my own ideas of who these people were going to be, and in many cases I was wrong.
Q. How did your latest project come about?
A. The “9 to 5” videos I did in 2014 allowed me to speak to women about their experience with prejudice or racism within the corporate space. I chose women who were seasoned within their experience and could articulate a problem and how they resolved the issue — whether it dealt with them being a woman or because they were a minority. And the remarkable thing about these interviews was each woman had the same story. It didn’t matter if they were in the medical field, whether they were in day care or education. Linking those stories together became pretty organic. 
Q. And what was that story?
A. Being in a situation where you’re the only one. Being in a boardroom for instance, and someone makes a comment about minorities or about women. And you find yourself in this predicament where you’re the only minority and the only woman. What do you say?

In doing the “9 to 5” project, I realized that many of my students had never been in corporate spaces. Many times, they’d come to me and say: “Professor Beal, I’m having a situation. I didn’t get this job, they told me that my hair was unkempt. They told me that I need to change how I look.” I thought about even my own experiences where I have been in the corporate space and felt like I had to alter who I was in order to fit in.

Endia Beal: ‘9 to 5’
In Endia Beal’s video “9 to 5,” she interviewed women about their experiences with prejudice or racism within the corporate space.

Q. How did you feel working in a corporate environment?
A. In corporate, it feels like a tribe. If you don’t fit the tribe, you’re not part of the team. That tribe is usually determined by leadership. I’ve spoken to a lot of groups on the idea of diversity inclusion within the corporate space, and what happens is if you don’t see yourself in leadership, that’s with anybody, then there’s no way you can feel comfortable.

As a minority and as a woman, if you don’t feel like leadership is even understanding half of the things that you’re going through, then there’s no way that you can feel completely comfortable.

Q. Tell me about some of the girls you photographed. What is Kiara’s story?
A. She was actually the first person I photographed — I started this project back in 2013. Kiara (Slide 1) is in law school now, and at that time, she was about to go to law school. I told her, “Listen, I’m bringing this backdrop to your house.” And I told her I wanted her to wear something that she would normally wear and be comfortable in.

When I took that photograph, she had done a lot of different poses, and I realized that I didn’t want a posed image. I wanted her to be more natural. And she was sitting there thinking of what the next pose was going to be, and in this moment she’s like, “I just don’t know.” And in that moment, I snapped a picture. It was this moment when you’re just trying to figure it out.

Katrina wants to be a journalist and wanted to work in writing or news. Her sister, Sabrina, wants to do graphics or illustration. Katrina has on those four-inch heels, and they’re giving you fierce and they’re owning it.

Q. What do you hope people take away from your work?
A. I was talking with artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, who is currently a critic at Yale, and we were talking about the history of minority women in photography. That history is still being written. Deborah Willis is coming out with some really amazing books, but that history is still very much at its infancy. We have Lorna Simpson, or Carrie Mae Weems, or Deana Lawson, we have these phenomenal women, but it’s just not enough of us. As an artist, if I can just add a couple of pieces to that story, then I feel like I’m doing my job.