Black girlhood in photos and writing

0:08Growing up in a creative family in Trinidad in the United States, Sisters Salamisha and Scheherazade Tillett developed their own ways of expressing themselves through words and pictures. And now they've got a chance to explore a theme close to their hearts, Black girlhood. You're listening to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. I'm Sienna Greaves and I'm with the Tillett sisters as they start to document the joy and freedom, or lack of it, experienced by Black girls and young women in the U.S. today. We're going to hear how they play with light and movement to take photographs and respond to those images with words and phrases to create text alongside, transforming everyday scenes into their own artistic expressions of what it feels like to be a Black girl.

0:55We collaborated as children. Shahrazad and I were little kids in Black nativity. I don't know if that's collaboration proper, but it was this moment for us to share the stage, get dressed up, and tell this magnificent story that Langston Hughes wrote from the perspective of black people. My name is Shahar Azad Tillett. My name is Salamisha Tillett. And who is the older sister? I am Salamisha. Okay. So tell me a bit about yourselves. When I was an adolescent, I always really loved poetry, seeing Gwendolyn books, see Maya Angelou. And so that was like a medium I kind of used to express myself. And my dad is like the photographer in our family, gave me his camera to learn photography.

1:51I think I was able to kind of start to translate things that I would write about and put them into images. But it wasn't until really college that it became something that I thought of as something really serious. When I began photographing my sister's journey of healing as a sexual assault survivor, I was able to kind of communicate something larger, and that became my voice, essentially. And Salamisha? Well, I was an avid reader as a child, so I loved being lost in the world of language. Sharers and I grew up with a mom who majored in journalism and was a writer. But I never thought of myself as like a writer-writer until maybe high school.

2:40And I started writing for the high school newspaper. And then in college, I wrote for the feminist newspaper and the black newspaper. But over time, I think I've experimented with what it means to be a critic, what it means to be a creative nonfiction writer, what it means to be a memoirist, and the power I think I've found for myself to convey the ideas of other people. That's been a longer journey. And that journey thereon, documenting Black lives with images and words, was previously explored by people like the renowned photographer Gordon Parks, best known for images he captured of Black Americans in the 1940s.

3:20One famous photograph taken for Life magazine shows young black children staring through a fence into a whites-only playground in the segregated state of Alabama in 1956. It's in these images where Scheherazade finds real inspiration. I have been an admirer of Gordon Parks' works for a very long time, but particularly fell in love with his work on play and how he has intentionally used play as a way of deepening the humanity of Black people, but also talking about segregation and the impact it has had and looking at these moments of play in that kind of way, whether it was his images of the doll experiment in terms of Black people.

4:07black children choosing white dolls in the segregation, or these beautiful images that were more recently found after his death about segregation, where he goes and follows a family. And so I always thought that was a really interesting lens of looking at racial inequalities. How does it work in the normalcy of play? I work with children, and we always were told, play is the window to a child's mind. And so for me, when I began to photograph children, play was part of the story, part of how I was going to be able to connect with children, but also learn their magical world. Parks collaborated on a series of photo essays with acclaimed African-American writer Ralph Allison, best known for his award-winning novel, The Invisible Man.

4:57For Salamisha, they highlighted the psychological damage of racism inflicted on the residents of New York City. I'm actually responding to and being enlivened by the famous collaboration between Ralph Ellison and Gordon Parks. Ellison wrote in response to when Gordon Parks was documenting this kind of psychiatric clinic in Harlem. And then Parks responds to Ellison's Invisible Man.

5:301952. And that's the iconic image of, like, the black man coming from the subway. Like a... Pothole in the ground. But this one, Parks is now responding to Ellison. So they're restaging, right? Like, how do you capture this moment when the invisible man's underground and he's, like, literally stealing electricity? This is a double-exposed moment. Yeah. I mean, you have to think about this pre-Adobe Photoshop. You see the underworld and yet the skyline of New York City. How do you do that image? When you print it, you have to do two images in one. Wow. So it's like a double exposed kind of moment.

6:12So this is one image and then you print this on top of that. So you have this like beautiful collaboration between two friends who are becoming the artists that we now know them as. Anyway, that's for me as a writer, the inspiration for my attempt to write alongside Scheherazade's photographs. I'm really excited to do that. And I also think it'll be something that I feel like can help me continue to grow as an artist. Sheherazade, how have you supported your sister in this new experience? Because when you were speaking about, you know, your adolescence and how you saw photography as a way of taking your words and putting them in pictures.

6:54And now your sister is taking your pictures and putting them in her words. Well, I don't think, you know, I have long left creative writing as my genre, but my approach to photography still is literature. So I will do a deep dive of books to kind of foreground me into creating the image, whether it's art books, but also there's a book that we discovered. It's a book based on black play in Ghana called Playtime, and it's a poet with a photographer. her. And so bringing that to her as an influence is, I think, how I'm trying to inspire her. Research is the bedrock for the Tillett sisters' own creative work.

7:36They pore over books like Playtime in Africa, the classic poetry and photo book full of children in Accra, playing everything from hopscotch to dressing up, kite flying to chasing shadows. But they also look at much more disturbing images, including those Parks took of the infamous psychological test, in which young Black children were asked to choose between two dolls, one Black and one white. Oh, so don't you look. A famous image of the doll test. The young little boy, what age do you think, like six, seven? I don't know. Psychologist holds like the different tests, a white doll and a black doll, and what he chooses.

8:21It's the white doll on this hand and points to it. It becomes important for the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board. They use this test and those images as proof of the harm that segregation is doing on Black children. The sisters have been awarded$25 ,000 each by the foundation set up in Gordon Park's memory, making them the first siblings to be given fellowships for their distinct bodies of work. So does it help to embark on this new project together so someone's always got your back? In some ways, I'm not a very risk-taking artist. I can see all the barriers why I wouldn't be good at something.

9:04Like, I don't draw really well, so that impacted painting. But then with writing, obviously, I feel very comfortable. And I think with Scheherazade, maybe there's a comfort and a safety that what we can create together can be actually very good. So I'm less worried about perfection. I don't know. I've never really thought of it, though. So it's kind of interesting. I'm trying to think about this. It feels less risk-taking because it's collaborative to me. Yeah. Like, okay, they're going to do that. Okay, I got to bring my game as a photographer. Yeah, and I think you know someone's going to catch you.

9:38Yeah. And how do you work together? Do you see yourselves as a team? Do you work at a similar pace? I definitely do not work at a similar pace. the reference of sisterhood for me is like Beyonce and Solange. Yes, Scheherazade is talking about former Destiny's child sisters superstars, Beyonce and Solange Knowles. Now, of course, solo artists. Solange, I feel like you may get another album. You may not. She's so like an independent artist. But Beyonce is like every two years, there's something. And so I think Solamesha is the Beyonce and I'm Solange. I think they need each other. Personally, I don't cover as many different topics as Salamisha, and Salamisha is on the go.

10:20But yet, whatever I do, it has to impact the people who are in the photographs. But when you approach everything like that, it's exhausting. And so you can't do as much of something. This is our first time collaborating in this way, where I'm actually responding to and being enlivened by Scheherazade's photographs. Talk to me a little bit more about this project. Which young women are you featuring in your photography? And tell me about their communities and how they contrast. It is pretty amazing when you see the send-off here in Chicago, which is the pre-prom ritual, which is like a whole street and a community and a family are coming together to champion this girl on to her prom.

11:05Or something like Carnival, which is a national festival. Then we have Kitty's Carnival, which is predominantly black girls. There's this, like, exaltation of black girlhood on the stage. I've been photographing prom. I've been going back to where we grew up and learned how to play Trinidad and Tobago and carnival. And so for this series, I kind of wanted to do something new. So one of the places is going to Martha's Vineyard, photographing a new community of play. For me, a new community because I've done a lot of work, I think, more so in terms of working class. Our girls are out. Playing and splashing and laughing, and in the center of it is Scheherazade, trying her best to capture as many of these moments as she can.

11:53The island of Martha's Vineyard off the east coast of the United States was made famous by the Kennedy family and is a popular destination for affluent holidaymakers. A hundred years ago, middle-class African Americans flock to the town of Oak Bluffs for a taste of leisure and a reprieve from the stressors of racial segregation. Today, the town remains a major hub for black Americans, and it's there where the girls are swimming at Inkwell Beach.

12:27I think play in general is like freedom spaces. What does it look like to find children in this moment of clear inequality that we have not seen at this kind of level in terms of the new administration on black and brown bodies. I'm a parent of a 13-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, and I spend a lot of time thinking about their sense of autonomy and freedom. There are very few places in the United States where you feel like you can kind of let your children wander, and they'll be okay. and Martha's Vineyard is a very unique place during this very specific time. I'm seeing young girls going into the ocean.

13:13Some are playing with sand at the shore, all different shades of brown. There's a little rocky, so that's why they're going slow into the ocean. And they're just swimming. Each minute, they have a new game. And I think that's what is hard to like, oh, as soon as you got the shot or the angle, they have moved on. And when you talk about this project exploring playtime and the freedom of play, how does that manifest itself in the lives of young black women and girls? So a lot of what we think of as like everyday Black girlhood ways of being become adapted and appropriated in mainstream culture. Anything from like hand games to double dutch, dancing, little things that are like actually kind of rituals, I think, are so central to African-American identity that it gets exported.

14:03I think also the way that Scheherazade's approach to play, it's about like the ways in which communities come together to also celebrate Black girlhood. You're listening to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. I'm Sienna Greaves following the Tillett sisters, Scheherazade and Salamisha, as they document the lives of Black American girls.

14:30A thousand miles from the Massachusetts coastline, I'm in Chicago with a front row seat for one of the city's key cultural events. They start lining up around 6 a.m. for this massive parade. One of the major thoroughfares where the parade is set up is actually on my street. The streets are lined with groups of children. There are brightly colored t-shirts and costumes. There are majorettes, there are dancers, there are drummers. Amongst the crowds, I'm looking out for a particular dance troupe, Dance Force. Scheherazade has been documenting the rehearsals and will be taking photographs of them today.

15:14It's not just a big community event. It's one of the bigger political events in Chicago. go here we are with dance force I can see them they look amazing coming around corner and across the street their costumes are amazing red gold hooded this is it this is the big event I'm concerned about how they're gonna manage all of this today and this incredible incredible

15:49Just as you're taking photos today and following these two dance teams, how are the images you're capturing today feeding that top line of looking at black girls at play? They're definitely having a good time, but they're very serious about their craft. Like, I was like, look at me! At one time, right? And they were like, no, we have rehearsed this. That's a cue to the song, and they did the routine. And are you capturing that on film? Is it in their faces? Is it in the way that they're responding? Is it the way that they're moving? Yeah, as much as I can. This is my fifth quad political parade.

16:23Particularly, I feel like this year, I feel like it was an aha moment of really kind of living it with the performers. How politically important this is to Chicago. I mean, to be like the biggest parade for black people in the country, like photographing them take over a street. You know, there's a moment where we pass, like, a monument of a white man on a horse with a spear. And I was like, oh, these girls are the monuments, right? Like, they were publicly taking over public space. And that means a lot for girls because oftentimes streets are not necessarily the safest space for us to publicly be or see.

17:10how is it you're just weaving in and out taking pictures walking backwards it's kind of amazing to see how much energy that they have and they look so beautiful with their costumes but yeah it's beautiful like trying to capture their sudden dance and movement I went really between a 35mm lens and then a 200mm lens. Yeah, this is my first time using such a large lens. Oh, the 200mm? How significant is that? It just allows me to kind of get a certain closeness to the subject matter without being right on top of them. And I realized with dance, I'm venturing more into sports photography than portraiture.

17:57After the Thanksgiving holiday, I catch up with the sisters as they take a first look at some of the images captured over the summer. Can you just take me back to when these were taken and what you're seeing? So we are looking at August in Martha's Vineyard. The images that we're seeing is when I came back and really focused on our good friend, Rajine, who's from Boston and her family's from Haiti. Her husband is from Ghana. She went to Martha's Vineyard as a child and she coordinated 18 children. This is actually sometimes what happens in Martha's Vineyard is that the friends groups gets together and a lot of play dates are happening.

18:39Until I share my screen and Salamisha, I think Salamisha is seeing it also for the first time. I mean, there are there are so many images. And what's resonating with you now? I wanted to really immerse myself into the play. I just remember like me not having a waterproof. I don't have a waterproof camera. I am a short person. So technically, like I had to be strongest photographer to get the shot and also swim, holding it and getting the motion. I think those were for me the stronger images. I can see that here in this photo. Can you just describe it for me and let our listeners know what we're looking at here?

19:16Okay. There's a group of young girls and they're giggling and laughing. One is touching a forehead. Two kids are actually on top of their shoulders. Water is splashing. The water levels like half their body, like you're in the circle of this play that's happening. I think part of the Martha's Vineyard effect is like, how do you bottle up that freedom moment and then like sustain you for the realities of the world? How many photos do you think you took that day? I think I took like 400, three to 400. Yeah. Wow. And Thelamisha, what words come to mind when you look at these images? Well, I guess with this image in particular, the water, I think, stands out tremendously.

20:00Obviously, seeing the ocean glistening off of the arms of these young girls is just pretty amazing. This one in particular is just like the diversity of Black girls that you see here. All these different hair textures, these different like smiles and laughter. I think it's just a really captivating image. Have you thought about the length of prose per photo? Yeah, this is why I think it's daunting because you're doing two things. You're trying not to distract from the image, but you also are trying to add to the experience of witnessing it. So, you know, either like paragraph long, couplet long, two paragraphs.

20:39But also I don't want it to feel like a caption because I'm not trying to retell you like the location and the setting. I'm trying to like capture the spirit and also my experience seeing the photograph and living with them alongside Scheherazade. Where do you write? Well, in the beginning of a project, I tend to go away. So like renting a very nice hotel room. I'm very posh with my like needing to set up an ideal environment to create with a blank page or blank screen. So complete quiet and a sense of like isolation, but also ironically still in an urban atmosphere. I don't go too far away from my home.

21:20But then once that early process of gestation is done, then I actually can write anywhere, in a closet, on a train, on your phone. Yeah, I've written many a script on a Chicago city bus. So, yeah. Yeah, writing is stereotyped as being so precious. People think that you have to be in some, like, mountain, in a retreat, in the woods. To begin, I really do need a clear space. Toni Morrison used to talk about having to write before her children woke up before sunrise or at dawn. And it's just everything's quiet. And it is a good place for me to start thinking as well. I realized that I have a very detailed process.

22:02I take the pictures, then I kind of wait, and then I like download them. And then I like select some images like, you know, right away. But then I'll print them and put them on the wall and then narrow those things down. I will sometimes take a picture of a picture and send it to Salamisha. Salamisha's thought or just like, oh, this is so exciting. This being part of that collaborative process in some way has always been really critical and important to me. Sheherazade, do you mind just maybe flicking through some more of the photos? Yeah, I was going to actually talk about some from the Bud Budlikan parade.

22:40I really love like the energy of the majorette team on the bus. I actually like this one a lot. Oh, I love that one. Can you describe this photo for us? It's a young girl. She is dark skinned and she is holding a black fan near her face. She has a red and white majorette costume on and bows in her hair. She's trying to cool herself off, seeing the still moment of getting ready, anticipating something more. You get to understand the true dedications of these young people. They go and get their hair done the same style the day before. Yeah, this young lady's hair looks fantastic. Yeah, her hair is like braided.

23:26How would you describe that? Like her baby, I love the baby hair. Her edges are like laid out. there's one two three four five maybe six bows yeah it's like two pigtails with corn rows at the top with the bows leading to the again this is because you know i have to okay go ahead writers i'm like no it's not it's only because i have a 13 year old daughter who i have to like send her hairdresser photographs to hairstyles so there's nothing to do with me being a writer when we're looking at this young lady who's off to whatever lies ahead for her next i'm just Just wondering, what do you hope that this project will add to how we understand what Black girls and Black womanhood is like in the U.S.

24:10today? Yeah, I would like, I mean, that's my life purpose. And this particular project is really to document and save and preserve, right, where there's so much erasure is the first word I was thinking about in terms of Black history right now. And at the same time, I feel like there are so many stories that haven't been told, but also really connecting these spaces and these landscapes for people and what that space really means to them. And same question for you, Selamisha. On the most basic level, of course, it's a space in which girls who are not used to seeing images of themselves in this format, they can see themselves reflected in it, right?

24:52So that's already kind of a radical act, just taking their everyday lives and reifying it and sharing it with the world. I think that would be enough. But I was also thinking, what if we could capture what are really temporary spaces, right? Like the send off is a temporary space. Martha Vineyard during the summer is a temporary space. If we can see this possibility, this moment in which black girls feel fully self-possessed, if we could actually make that last longer, what would our society look like? What would our country look like? What would our community look like? So that's what I see in Scheherazade's photographs, like an attempt to capture those moments and then extend them beyond the day or the weekend or the season.

25:39It's a big ask for a photograph, but also I think there are ways in which her photographs can achieve that.

25:50I could have looked at those images for hours. The joy and determination on the faces of the Black girls at the beach and in the parade are truly inspiring.

26:05The Tillett sisters' work will feature in an exhibition next fall at the Gordon Parks Foundation in upstate New York. You've been listening to me, Sienna Greaves, speaking to Scheherazade and Salamisha Tillett for the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service.

26:25Thank you.