The Center for Black Visual Culture, the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, and Tilt Institute are pleased to present a public conversation with artist Larry W. Cook and scholar and curator Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, focusing on contemporary photographic practices among system-impacted artists.
This program is anchored in the Wherever There Is Light exhibition, on view at the Cooper Square Gallery (Ground Floor, 20 Cooper Square, New York) from January 29 to February 27, 2026. Wherever There is Light, led by Cook, consists of a fellowship and exhibition series that supports a cohort of formerly incarcerated photographers in developing and sustaining their artistic practices beyond the conditions of confinement. While vernacular photography within carceral systems is one of the most widely practiced visual traditions, the fellowship centers artists who are pushing past its historical constraints: challenging the visual logics of surveillance, documentation, and control that have long shaped representations of incarcerated life.
Cook and Fleetwood will discuss how system-impacted photographers are generating new image cultures that exceed the limits of criminal index/surveillance strategies and their aesthetics: experimenting with self-representation, collaborating across distance and time, building personal and collective archives, and creating new visual languages of representation, refusal, and futurity. Together, they will reflect on how photography becomes a medium not only for survival and testimony, but also for re-imagining identity, kinship, and belonging.
January 29, 2026 — Opening Reception for Wherever There Is Light: New York, NY
