Akilah Townsend, who grew up in Chicago’s South Side, remembers taking pictures with her friends in early the 2000s-2010s, “When I think of Chicago culture, it’s something that I can feel better than I can describe,” she admits. “But it was going to the Rink with my best Rocawear outfit, color coordinated to the nines. We would be decked out in Girbaud straps, academics, Fubu; baby blues, whites, oranges.”
It was that period in her life, and that specific place on the map, that inspired her passion for color. Whether she knew it or not, it was during this time, making memories with friends, that she started to uncover a lifelong mission.
“In my personal work, it is important for me to make imagery of those who are most devalued, misunderstood, and unprotected: Black women,” she tells me. When collaborating with clients, too, her work is often a continuation of that goal, motivated by her desire to uplift and empower those who sit in front of her camera.
Chicago continues to be a constant muse. “Another way that I think my city has informed who I am as an artist is the nature of my resilience and creativity,” Townsend reflects. “The South Side is a very creative place with ingenuitive people. Facing a lack of options, in many different ways, we build the mindset of ‘Get it how you can/get it how you live.’ I very much have adopted this mindset and have a resilient, flexible nature.”
Her portrait sessions change based on the person she’s photographing, but they always center around her sitter’s comfort, allowing them to become authors over their own image. “I try to allow people to show up exactly how they are,” Townsend says.
She’s photographed actors, musicians, physicists, activists, and educators. She photographed Lori Lightfoot, the 56th Mayor of Chicago, on the roof of City Hall. Once, when partnering with a church, she photographed residents of Chicago’s West Side outside, setting up a black curtain as her backdrop. Soon, when the weather warms up, she plans to photograph her father in the nearby town of Joliet, where he grew up.
In 2020, in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, she made Every Star, a portrait of a mouth and gold teeth, glittering brighter than the constellations. A few months earlier, she sat in front of the camera herself, her face bathed in a glowing spotlight.
“Making self-portraits is tiring, but I try to do one once a year,” Townsend reflects. “This one was 2020, two and a half years ago. I captioned it ‘Protect Black Women’ because we are continuously left unprotected, by systems and people meant to protect us. We face systemic racism and misogynoir and are at risk of police violence. This was just after the murder of Breonna Taylor.”
Late last year, Townsend worked on a story for The Wall Street Journal about the murders of Black women and girls. Murders of Black women rose sharply during the pandemic, but the percentage of those cases that were solved by police fell—more so than was observed among other demographics.
As cases remain unsolved, families have tried to step in and find answers—and justice—for their loved ones. “Almost three years after Breonna Taylor’s passing, the problem is persistent and only getting worse,” Townsend explains.
Still, even in the face of pain and injustice, moments of joy and resistance are woven like gold thread throughout Townsend’s portraiture. In a recent collaboration, the artist harkens back to the early 2000s, when she and her friends came into their own in Chicago, the city that shaped them.
Part of a campaign for a clothing capsule by the brand Chicago Girls Do It Better, the series is a celebration of sisterhood: “It’s that type of love that watches over you, picks you up when you’re down, and fills in the gaps wherever you might need, even if you don’t know it,” the artist writes.
In many ways, her steadfast commitment to photographing and championing Black women is an extension of that same type of love—an ode to sisterhood as a force with the power to move mountains. She tells me, “My aim with my portraiture work is to evoke a sense of familial empathy and also, simply awareness; that we’re here, we are beautiful and meant to be protected, the same as anyone else.”
Akilah Townsend is a member of Black Women Photographers, a global community bringing together Black women and non-binary photographers. To learn more about Black Women Photographers, visit their website, and follow along on Instagram at @blackwomenphotographers.
All images © Akilah Townsend (@killls)
Leave a Reply