Nona Faustine was a mother, sister, daughter, and a world-traveling, internationally exhibited, and multi-awarded photographer. Driven by Black women’s histories at home and abroad, Nona activated her body to be a conduit for those understudied histories that are often hidden under streets and architecture. She was best known for her photographic series White Shoes and My Country. Based in research in New York City and State archives, White Shoes focused on illuminating locations—such as Central Park—whose Black histories have been disappeared from popular knowledge. Her series, My Country, happened by chance. While on the Staten Island Ferry, Nona snapped a photograph of the Statue of Liberty and only realized later that a bar appeared as a black fizzling shadow through the middle of the image. In subsequent photos, the black bar through well-known national monuments came to represent the fractures in democracy. Her most recent photographic project was called AfroPhantazein. She began research and work on this series as a recipient of the Rome Prize Fellowship. The project focused on uncovering Black African history in the Mediterranean. She was unable to complete the project. Nona Faustine passed away in the Spring of 2025. Her father, sister Channon, and daughter Queen Ming carry on her legacy.
We are REPLAYING LIT Friday with Nona Faustine in honor of her artistic contributions, and her words are needed now, it seems, more than ever.