Zhao Qian A Field Guide 2019 HCP Fellowship Winner The long-haul airplane flight is Zhao Qian’s metaphor for the associative, introspective, disorienting images in “A Field Guide.” When one is in an extended state of limbo, one casts about for visual stimulation, whether out the window or among the corporate entertainments offered by the airline. … Continued
Long before American primetime audiences were introduced to freedom colonies through the ancestral histories of celebrities like Michael Strahan in Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ series, Finding Your Roots, freedom colonies around the world have been documenting, preserving, and sharing their histories—including Houston’s own Freedmen’s Town, also known as The Fourth Ward. Centuries of systemic, institutional, … Continued
“When we got to Richmond, my father took me on a tour of the city…He took me first to the area of the city where he had lived and that has since become Interstate 95. For thirty minutes we stood by the highway, cars barreling by, as he perused the few surviving landmarks. ‘We used … Continued
Valerie Chiang Valerie Chiang is the managing editor of spot and Marketing Coordinator of HCP. Darold Cuba Darold Cuba is the first WikiFellow and Wikimedian In Residence at Columbia University, documenting the “freedom colonies” created along the colonial pathways as “resistance” & the original “safe spaces” from Western Colonialism, a collaboration in Oral History & … Continued
No matter the shape, size, or location, home is a site of memory and history-making, both personal and cultural. This issue of spot is dedicated to the importance of home and what it means, particularly for longtime residents of Houston’s historic Fourth Ward, whose home and history has been a place of intense public debate … Continued
SPOT magazine is our online publication providing critical writing, ongoing documentation and timely debate about photography and related media.