soulbrotherv2:

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video (Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

The work of contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953) hits hard with a powerful mix of lived life and social commentary. Since the late 1970s, her photographs, films, and installations have become known for presenting realistic and authentic images of African Americans while confronting themes of race, gender, and class. This book, the first major survey of Weems’s career, traces the artist’s commitment to addressing issues of social justice through her artwork. Her early photographs, which focused on African American women and families, have since led to work that examines more general aspects of the African diaspora, from the legacy of slavery to the perpetuation of debilitating stereotypes. Increasingly, she has broadened her view to include global struggles for equality and justice.

This beautifully illustrated book highlights over 200 of Weems’s most important works. Accompanying essays by leading scholars explore Weems’s interest in folklore, her focus on the spoken and written word, the performative aspect of her constructed tableaux, and her expressions of black beauty.

Brazilian Photographer Gustavo Lacerda’s ‘Albinos’ Series

In Lacerda’s home country of Brazil, albino people mostly live on the Ilha dos Lencois, a sparsely populated island that also functions as an ibis sanctuary, according to Lonely Planet. At one point, the existence of albinism in northern Brazil was extensively studied, but then died down, until the Daily Mail went crazy over a story about an Afro-Brazilian woman who apparently had three children with albinism. The Guardian recently reported on a story of two parents who debated whether to have a child with albinism, saying, “I was anxious about the impact on us of being parents and the perceptions of other people.”

The photographer’s series incorporates the gaze those with albinism are wont to experience, but in the series, they look right back at the viewers. Toying with pose, light and saturation, Lacerda creates an ethereal beauty where the light-drenched palette is coupled with a darker reality.

(via Huffington Post)

theatlantic:

God’s Surgeons in Africa

In countries where many are performing surgery without any formal training, a Christian organization is educating surgeons who stay around despite little pay or prestige- sometimes despite real danger.

See more. [Images: Brian Till]

devidsketchbook:

SNOWFLAKES BY MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY ANDREW OSOKIN

The Moscow-based photographer Andrew Osokin demonstrates incredible patience that has to be a prerequisite in order to capture such stunning shots of the objects, which might melt shortly after touching the ground. Osokin’s collections focus on the smaller things in life that are usually overlooked by busy passersby such as raindrops, insects and this time, snowflakes. [+]

Magnificent