LaChaun Moore

One day I looked at the clouds and saw familiar faces in them. Clouds are only puffy pockets of air, but I knew I was seeing black faces, and their formation reminded me of cotton. I was inspired to produce portraits made of cotton, but in time these portraits evolved into garments, which became bodies, physically in their silhouette, and figuratively, as an ode to the weight the material carries in America. These bodies exist in these two series of photographs. One series represents my grandparents' generation. In my family, agricultural interest died after my grandfather's generation, much as I found it has drastically shrunk amongst the African-American community, as shown in my research for the Tishman Center. In my work I travel between the past and present, depicting my personal narrative and comparing and contrasting it with the greater American narrative. The second series of photographs is of my mother and me. We represent the first and second generation to leave the farm. Together we pose wearing the garments. Our bodies are wearing bodies that carry the weight of cotton. My desire to understand work with cotton is a desire to understand the past and how it manifests in the future.