Project Space Residency

Open Studio: December 8, 6-7pm

Raymond Thompson is an artist, educator and visual journalist based in Austin, TX. He currently works as an Assistant Professor of Photojournalism at University of Texas at Austin. He has received a MFA in Photography from West Virginia University and a MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. He also graduated from the University of Mary Washington with a BA in American Studies. He has worked as a freelance photographer for The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, Propublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell and the Associated Press.

My work explores the impact of erasure on identity and representation.  I’m specifically focusing on the stories and myths found in the African and Black diaspora that have actively and passively been deleted from cultural memory. I am equally interested in the more passive ways in which these narratives have been gradually lost through time and forgetting. 

My interest in these narratives of the unknown past stems from an artificial cap on my own personal history. This erasure begins after my grandfather left the south during the Great Migration.  From that moment, many parts of my family history were lost to the forgetting inherent in verbal histories. 

I want to pick up where historical memory and cultural myths left off. I’m exploring these ideas in my work by appropriating text, illustrations and photographs. I’m using this research to inspire the creation of new spective historical based work.

This program is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Max and Marian Farash Foundation; and Joy of Giving Something.