The Softest Parts Are Black
In 1903, author and historian W.E.B. Du Bois described the concept of double consciousness - the internal conflict experienced by Black Americans as they navigated life through both their own self-perception and the lens of a dominant white society. As a means of survival in a racially volatile era, Black communities developed dual ways of seeing: grounded in their own cultural identity while also anticipating how they would be judged from the outside. According to Du Bois, Blackness has been subjected to constant negotiation, construction, and conflict:
"It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."
The Softest Parts Are Black is an ongoing photographic project that reflects on this tension - examining how Black identity is continuously shaped, contended with, and expressed. The portrait series documents the interplay between vulnerability and resilience, capturing both real and imagined experiences of Blackness in a place where history, memory, and survival converge.
Title borrowed from The Softest Parts Are Black, Jay Katelansky
