Photographer Nekisha Durrett says her initial plan was to document the difficulties being black and gay poses. This changed when she met the parents of four lesbian teenagers featured in a recent exhibit at the District of Columbia Arts Center titled ‘Rising Voices.’ ‘I was shocked by how accepting they were,’ Durrett says of the girls’ parents. The teens featured in the exhibit are: (clockwise from top left) Latoya Ricks, Brandy Essex, Danyelle Jackson, and Veronica Gafari.
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YUSEF NAJAFI
Friday, December 12, 2003
IN HER FIRST PHOTO exhibit at the District of Columbia Arts Center, award-winning
photographer Nekisha Durrett chose to focus on individuals like herself: young,
black, gay and living in Washington, D.C.
“These young women, with their rainbows and public displays of affection,
want to be seen and identified as, among other aspects of their developing
personas, lesbians,” Durrett, 27, wrote in her artist’s statement. “With
these portraits, I hope to provide these women an opportunity to be seen in
a popular culture that renders them invisible.”
Durrett’s photographs of four black lesbians were showcased as a part
of a group exhibition Nov. 14-Dec. 7 at the DCAC titled “Rising Voices.”
Organizers describe the DCAC as a nonprofit organization in Adams Morgan that
supports emerging artists trying to get a foothold in the public arena.
The DCAC’s visual arts committee noticed Durrett after seeing her photographs
at Art-O-Matic, a one month art show in Washington.
“Nekisha has a very strong eye,” says Karey Kessler, the DCAC’s
gallery manager. “Her photographs of African-American lesbians showed
us an underrepresented part of D.C., and added a different element to [‘Rising
Voices’].”
THE IDEA TO DOCUMENT the lives of young black gay women has been a long time
coming for Durrett, a graduate of the Duke Ellington High School for the Arts
in Washington. She subsequently earned a bachelor’s degree at the Cooper
Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York and a master’s
degree in photography at the University of Michigan School of Art and Design
in Ann Arbor. She currently works as an exhibits specialist at the Smithsonian
Institution’s Office of Exhibits.
“When I talked to them, I saw that they wanted desperately to be seen
and noticed,” she says. “These girls are not hiding at all. I wanted
to give them a platform to be seen and recognized.”
Featured in the photographs are Danyelle Jackson, 15, Veronica Gafari, 16,
Brandy Essex, 19, and Latoya Ricks, whose age was not available.
Durrett met the young women through the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League,
an organization in Washington that provides support for gay and questioning
youths and young adults from ages 13 to 21.
Durrett says her initial plan was to document the difficulties posed by being
black and gay. But this changed when she met the girls’ parents.
“I was shocked by how accepting they were,” she says. “One
of the biggest misconceptions about black culture and homosexuality is that
it’s so much harder to be a person of color and to be gay. But I’m
a product of an African-American family and my parents are very supportive.
“Maybe at one point, it was like that,” she says, “but today
the struggles that white teenagers have when coming out are the same as African
Americans.”
Even though the “Rising Voices” exhibit closed Sunday, Durrett
says she plans to continue photographing black lesbians and someday hopes to
present a much larger exhibit.
“Nekisha is thinking in terms of having billboards and magazines,” Kessler
says. “She wants to have her photographs in a more public sphere, and
not just in a restricting gallery.”
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