Join us as C. Rose shares their research which examines twentieth-century African and African American portrait studios, tracing connections across the Americas, Africa, and Europe

About the Speaker:

C. Rose Smith is a photographer and Assistant Curator of Photography at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. As a photographer, their work redresses the history and legacy of cotton and the reduction of African Americans as a commodity. In their curatorial practice, their research examines twentieth-century African and African American portrait studios, tracing connections across the Americas, Africa, and Europe, and how contemporary photographers review and engage with historical photography archives in their work to construct new, layered narratives. Smith is organizing the first exhibition and catalogue to celebrate the practice of the Hooks Brothers Studio, while stewarding a preservation project for their archive. This archive is the largest collection of photographs by an African American photo studio in the Mid-South. In previous roles, Smith contributed to rotating exhibitions and managed the photography collections at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, and Boston University Libraries in
Boston, MA. They hold an M.F.A. in Photography and Related Media from Rochester Institute of Technology