Curator: Maya Anner
Shadows of Emmett Till focuses on the Mississippi Delta and what remains of Emmett Till’s time. A region of layered histories, the Delta is a place that defines America and Americans like no other part of the country, home to a culture entwined with slavery and poverty, and political and economic oppression. It is the land that gave birth to the creative genius of B.B. King, and to the horrific murder of young Emmett Till. Shadows of Emmett Till probes the complex past on the backdrop of a landscape that has bred both hatred and creativity, interrogating the whiteness that has always held power in a place that is predominantly Black, and observing the many ways the shadow of Till’s murder still hangs over the Delta. The project frames the region and its people in a 21st-century context, at a time when white America may finally be coming to terms with the sins of its past. By photographing the Delta of today, the past spills into the present, reverberating parallels to George Floyd and many others.
