Being Seen series two is out today (11 May 2021), and you can see all the accompanying photography and artwork on each episode’s page on the podcast’s website. Hear more from Isaiah and Valentine in episode six.
“We tried to think about each episode as a challenge,” he adds. “What is a photographic response to the idea of fatherhood, access, or mentorship?”
For an episode about health, Valentine says they thought “the many visualisations and perspectives to the topic and landed on Miranda Barnes work. The images we chose from touched on health inside of the Black community, but sought to look deeper considering climate, environment, and physical health inside these spaces”.
Together, Isaiah and Valentine built a list of Black and Brown photographers whose work they felt held “long-lasting power, perspective, and importance,” and represented unique voices in the community. These include Jah Grey, Erik Carter, Clifford Prince King, Shan Wallace, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr, Faith Couch, Nate Palmer, Kennedi Carter, Widline Cadet and Hannah Price, plus the curators themselves. Each image speaks to a theme or topic from a specific episode. For example, when curating imagery for the episode discussing the intimacies and challenges of the barbershop, Valentine says they both “immediately thought of Antonio Johnson’s phenomenal book, You Next and his vast body of work on the topic. It felt like a no-brainer”.