This project considers the historic and contemporary role that photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath while examining the social lives of Black Americans within various places including the land, at home, in photographic albums, at historic sites, and in public memory. The publication presents some 20 artists working in photography, video, silkscreen, projection, and mixed media installation: Terry Adkins, Radcliffe Bailey, J. P. Ball & A. S. Thomas, Sadie Barnette, Dawoud Bey, Sheila Pree Bright, Bisa Butler, Omar Victor Diop, Nona Faustine, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Daesha Devón Harris, Isaac Julien, Catherine Opie, Yelaine Rodriguez, Hank Willis Thomas, Lava Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Wendel A. White, William Earle Williams. The works they have conceived reflect defining moments in the struggle for racial justice and equality and advance a different sense of empowerment. The timing of a publication like this could not be more urgent given the human toll of the pandemic, widening economic disparities, the threat of war, voting rights, global migration crises, and quotidian violence.

'Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory' is the companion publication to the FotoFocus biennial exhibition that is scheduled for Fall 2022 and will run at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (September 30, 2022 - March 6, 2023).