Swimming Upstream

“Swimming Upstream” is about an innocent child’s relationship with nature and the complex history of black bodies within the landscape of America.  “For most of American history, land was a bludgeon used against the bodies of black people who were forced to work it to raise tobacco, rice, and cotton while being deprived of that bounty” (“Black Bodies, Green Spaces” by Tiya Miles, New York Times, June 15, 2019). Legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial violence have shaped cultural understandings of the great outdoors and determined who should and can have access to natural spaces. Conversely, nature has also been an ally in the fight for physical and psychological freedom.  Harriet Tubman used the land as cover to help lead slaves to freedom. 

With nature’s restorative and healing properties in mind, my son Torrin and I escaped to my parent’s house in New Hampshire for two months in the summer of 2020, after riding out COVID-19 amid protests against racial injustice in Brooklyn where we live.  This project documents our time there focusing on Torrin and issues related to belonging, coming of age, race, family, human relationships with nature, protection of childhood, and healing. In showing a part of Torrin’s story, I hope to help unravel some of the incredibly destructive stereotypes that have been perpetuated for far too long in this country.