Gage Gallery

Love Letter for Black America: Photographs by Vanessa Charlot 

Vanessa Charlot is an award-winning photographic artist, filmmaker, and an Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. Her interdisciplinary work delves into the intersectionality of race, politics, culture, and sexual/gender aiming to explore the collective human experience. Through her photography and filmmaking, Charlotseeks to emphasize the humanity of Black bodies, challenging viewers to reconsider their perceptions and engage with the nuanced histories and contexts of her subjects.

Down in the Delta embarks on a journey to create a visual archive documenting the lived experiences and enduring legacy of Roosevelt Davenport (b. 1937) and his family. Former sharecroppers turned landowners on the Quito Plantation in Morgan City, Mississippi, the Davenport family's narrative is deeply intertwined with the intricate tapestry of Black life in the American South. Set against the backdrop of cotton fields and the lingering shadows of Jim Crow, this project sought to illuminate the resilience and contributions of Black Americans who chose to remain in the Delta, forging familial bonds and communities despite historical adversities.

Fire Next Time, inspired by the iconic literary work of James Baldwin, bears witness to the lives of Black residents in St. Louis, Missouri who live in a perpetual state of raging against the seemingly inextinguishable flames of racism, brutality, and oppression in modern day America. With Black communities facing two existential threats to their survival during the Summer of 2020, Covid-19 and ongoing police brutality, unavoidable truths laid itself bare to be critiqued and grappled with as a larger society. This archival project is an in-depth, visual narrative of life in St. Louis through the lens of racialized bodies paralleling the life cycle of fire. Fire is ignited. It grows. It combusts. And ultimately it decays. Black Americans and their lived realities symbolize the blazing fire of an endless fight for self-affirmation in a hostile environment—their homeland.