Jus Soli by Darryl Richardson
February 10 - March 5
2022
Richardson captured ways in which the community of Costa Chica navigates the duality of their African descent within the Mexican socio-political context. In the first installment of the project he explores the duality between being both present (on a social level), though absent (on a political level). This juxtaposition nearly renders the subjects as invisible. Richardson plays with this idea of invisibility in his vignettes. He considers the discrepancy between those two states a fundamental part of Blackness.
As Richardson learned more about the rites and customs of the community in Costa Chica, he saw parts of his own African-American heritage mirrored back. Through this epiphany, the portraits ultimately became self portraits. Providing a portal to reflect on the overarching notion of a universal Black experience. To Richardson this is the core principle of the project and a point of departure for central dialogue.
"No matter geographically where you are in the diaspora we are all connected through the same questions and experiences. What I ultimately discovered is that their questions are my questions. Albeit Oaxaca, I find a lot of similarities in what I witnessed during my own upbringing in the South side of Chicago. The question: why? Across cultures, darker people suffer most. Why?” - Richardson