Samo Journey at Port NOLA

SAMO Journey is a visual and psychological exploration of the dichotomy of progress pitted against the status quo of both people and place in an ever-changing New Orleans, nation and world. The struggle becomes glaringly evident when examining racial inequities and the imbalance that pervades class, education and neighborhoods. From Reconstruction to now, a social climate persists, where the ascension of blacks into the upper rungs of leadership is as common as the assassination of blacks on the street–the new lynching. SAMO Journey seeks to uncover the warring ideals of progress and sameness using “man against man”, “man against nature”, and “man against self” and “man against society.” These motifs, that are the common pillars of literature, also refer to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work that explored “suggestive dichotomies”, including wealth versus poverty, integration against segregation, and inner versus outer experience.
-L. Kasimu Harris


SAMO Journey is a thoughtful, contemporaneous attempt at exploring rich political content that the art world might otherwise sensationalize, co-opt or omit from the story line. With the exhibition, the artists are celebrating the spectrum of the black experience without shying away from the discriminative realities consistently and systematically imparted upon black bodies. The work is alluring, complex and fresh. As the creative director of an experimental art space, I think it is important to not only be progressive with content but also with process. I assisted with conceptualizing and choosing artists for this exhibition, but the narrative behind this work belongs to people who created it, and that choice reverberates an underlying concept of this show.
-Pamala Bishop

In this exhibition, the artists modulate between protagonist and third person narrators while navigating universal themes that are both personal and political. L. Kasimu Harris, a New Orleans based writer and photographer, explores polarities through constructed realities addressing the privatization of public education and by the documentation of class and culture. Vitus Shell, a Monroe, Louisiana based visual artist, is steeped in the present and past with his process and visual content that ranges from Jim Crow Stereotypes to the more modern imagery in hip-hop and current social commentary. Tiffany Smith, a Brooklyn based visual artist, uses self-portraiture to delve into the crux of identity and its formation by creating  iconography that translates the experience of being both an immigrant and a native and reference a  “space between two worlds.” 

PhotoNOLA is an annual festival of photography in New Orleans, coordinated by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries and alternative venues citywide. Showcasing work by photographers near and far, festival programming includes exhibitions, workshops, lectures, a portfolio review, gala and more. PhotoNOLA draws hundreds of photography professionals to the city to partake in a variety of educational programs, and reaches broadly into the local community with exhibitions and events that are largely free and open to the public.

The tenth annual PhotoNOLA festival will take place from December 10–13, 2015 with broad ranging photography exhibitions on display throughout the month.