In the two months since George Floyd’s tragic death, people across the world have shown their solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement, whether it’s by purchasing from black-owned brands, speaking up on social media or educating themselves through anti-racist books and films. Now the art world has come together to launch a series of charitable initiatives to raise money for the movement, through art sales featuring prints from some of the biggest names in fashion photography as well as world-renowned artists. Here, we’ve rounded up the ones to have on your radar.
Anti-Racism Photography Fundraiser
Set up by a group of friends from the creative industry in London, this one-off charity art sale features prints by more than 100 of the most exciting photographers from around the world, including Corinne Day, Martin Parr, Wolfgang Tillmans and Mario Sorrenti. Each print can be bought for £100 and all the proceeds raised will go to support three UK-based organisations that tackle different aspects of the fight against racism: The Black Curriculum, which addresses the lack of black British history taught in UK schools; Black Minds Matter, a mental health charity that works to connect black families and individuals with services by professional black therapists; and Exist Loudly, a fund set up earlier this year to support young queer black individuals in London and beyond.
The Anti-Racism Photography Fundraiser runs until Friday 24 July
My Queer Blackness, My Black Queerness
This three-week event, co-curated by Milan-based writer and editor Jordan Anderson and photo editor of Vogue Italia Chiara Nonino, combines live screenings of the work of pioneering filmmaker Marlon Riggs with a digital journal and a photographic print sale featuring limited edition works by the likes of Tim Walker and Campbell Addy, in celebration of black queer identity. Prints range from £150-£1,000, depending on the size and the photographer, with 100% of the proceeds donated to TransWaveJA and ForTheGworls, two charities that support black trans men and women. According to the duo, the digital project was created as “a protest, a celebration that frames blackness as a polyphony, a genre or melody with a vast variety of notes and textures, denouncing both white queer racism and black queer antagonism by way of art, film and literature”.
My Queer Blackness, My Black Queerness runs until Thursday 16 July
Takashi Murakami
Best known for his brightly coloured images of flowers and skulls, renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami has turned his usual motfis on their head to create a limited edition series of six screenprints using a nearly all-black palette. The works were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and will be sold via the NTWRK app in editions of 300, with all proceeds going to US-based organisations campaigning for racial justice and social equality, including Black Lives Matter, the Equal Justice Initiative and Color of Change. “If my art can effect any change here and now, I want to contribute it not only to give back but to give power to the Black community plagued by the racial injustice,” said Murakami in a statement about the sale.
Prints from Takashi Murakami’s sale will be available via NTWRK from the second week of July
Pictures from Ireland
Featuring 45 photographs spanning portrait, documentary and fashion photography, this photographic art sale features work made in the north and south of Ireland by photographers from around the world, including Tom Johnson, Amelia Troubridge and Jacob Lillis. Each of the works will be selling for £100 to raise money for two key causes that both need urgent attention right now: the Irish Network Against Racism, a national network of over 100 anti-racism civil society organisations, and NHS Charities Together, which supports NHS staff and volunteers caring for Covid-19 patients. “We saw all the fantastic efforts by Pictures for Elmhurst in the States and Photographs for the Trussell Trust in the UK, and realised that the same kind of format could be applied to Ireland,” said photographer Scott Gallagher, who helped organise the sale, in a recent interview with AnOther.
Prints from the Pictures from Ireland sale are available now
Priya Ahluwalia
London-based designer and photographer Priya Ahluwalia has launched a digital exhibition to coincide with the release of her second book, Jalebi, in which the 27-year-old artist explores her mixed Nigerian and Punjabi heritage. For the project she spent 18 months documenting the community of Southall, where Ahluwalia spent much of her childhood and which is home to London’s largest Sikh community. Along with photographer Lawrence Ellis, she set about chronicling the everyday lives of the people she encountered, in a bid to show “the beauty of diversity and how immigration enriches lives.” All of the proceeds from the book and the photographic print sale will be donated to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, which was founded to tackle inequality in all forms, and Southall Black Sisters, an organisation that works with BME women on a number of issues including domestic abuse, forced marriage and FGM.
Prints from Priya Ahluwalia’s virtual exhibition are available now
