Johnson Publishing Company Archives: Rejoice, Resist, Rest: Images of Black Liberation

The exhibition Rejoice, Resist, Rest: Images of Black Liberation from the Johnson Publishing Company Archives presents a selection of artworks, archival photographs, texts, and zines by students of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective and the Spelman Photography Program produced through access to the Johnson Publishing Company Archive, an initiative supported by the Getty Research Institute. Students engaged with historical photographs and other ephemera symbolic of the 20th century Black American experience and responded via themes of freedom and liberation. The results include a variety of interpretations and responses dependent upon a student’s personal, artistic, and academic interests. The project materialized in photography and curatorial studies courses taught in the Department of Art & Visual Culture at Spelman College under the direction of Nydia Blas, M.F.A., and Chad Dawkins, Ph.D.