Virginia Harold
“I’m after the soul. I don’t need to own it, but I like to glimpse it,” Liz Johnson Artur tells the audience at the opening of her exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, titled "Dusha"–the Russian word for soul.
Johnson Artur–a Russian-Ghanaian photographer who grew up in Bulgaria, Germany, and Russia–began photographing black communities on the streets of Brooklyn in 1986. It was her first visit to Brooklyn, her first time in a black community, and her first time out taking photographs. She was inspired by the connections she was able to create through her photography and has continued this work for over 30 years.
Theo Welling
Johnson Artur says she didn't set out to create an archive. “I just started taking pictures, and they accumulated.”
For Johnson Artur, photography has always been a physical experience. She grew up learning about family members she had never met from her mom’s photo albums. “There was always a connection–pictures have a story.”
Johnson Artur likes the physicality of photography and still photographs in film. “It’s very important to me that each print has a negative. I like the idea that there is this one fragile thing that backs it up.”
And because she takes photos with film, she often takes just one shot. “To me, it’s about keeping the moment alive as I found it rather than creating it.”
Printing her images has become an important part of her process. When Johnson Artur first began taking photos, she tried to keep up with printing the images. She would finish a shoot and immediately go home to her dark room to process the film. “I think I got hooked on photography because I like the process,” she says. “And I’m trying to get to the point to actually see what I have.”
“I love the poetry of photography,” she says. “The moment you decide to take someone’s picture is where the journey starts.”
Johnson Artur never hides behind a long lens–she sees photography as “a collaborative thing. I don’t want to take pictures that people don’t want to be taken,” she admits. Sometimes permission is granted non-verbally and other times she’ll ask. When an explanation is needed, she offers “I want your picture because I want to keep you in good company.”
Johnson Artur looks around the museum, “This is the company.”
In Dusha, Johnson Artur chronicles the African diaspora through photos, video, and sketchbooks. The photos and videos, which represent over 30 years of work and are part of her Black Balloon Archive, are arranged thematically. Johnson Artur purposefully doesn’t label them. There are no references to time or place. “I didn't want to guide people,” Johnson Artur says. “I wanted them to look at something and take it in for what it is. I think that my work is really about the fact that all this is around us.”
The photos teem with life. Girls dancing at a dancehall, a caretaker sitting in a regal hotel lobby, a dancer posing in a stairwell, boys flipping in front of a crowd.
“I don’t look at my work as a project. I call it an archive because it is a place where you keep things safe because you value them,” she says. “The focus is always on who I photograph. My work is about the people that you see here.”
Liz Johnson Artur: 'Dusha' is on display until April 19.
