Laylah Barrayn is living proof that sometimes, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. The New York City-based teacher and photographer got the idea for a visual celebration of female wordsmiths in 2008. Three years later, she unveiled Her Word as Witness: Women Writers of the African Diaspora, which Barrayn made happen with most of her own resources.
The photography exhibit, which is currently on display in Brooklyn at Restoration Plaza’s Skylight Gallery, Â celebrates female writers across different genres, who have impacted pop culture with their words. Among the women Barrayn photographed are poet Sonia Sanchez, author Demetria Lucas and former Essence Editor-in-Chief Susan L. Taylor. It’s Barrayn’s way of paying homage to the women she says inspired her, as well as several other creative women.
Opened on December 1, 2011, the exhibit will run through March 31 in Brooklyn before eventually traveling around New York City and to other City’s across the United States. BlackEnterprise.com caught up with Barrayn to talk about why this series is so important to her and how she kept going even when finances weren’t always on her side.
What inspired you to put Her Word as Witness together?
I’m really happy that I finished it because I just had this idea walking around in my head longer than it’s actually be done, so I’m still getting used to it being manifested. It’s a visual love letter to a lot of the writers that I admire and that I’ve read that have connected with me through my writing. They’ve inspired me and made me feel that everything is okay or that everything is going to get better and they have helped me validate my own self. They’ve influenced me through their words so much just by writing about their own lives or offering their perspectives through writings, and it’s been such a enrichment to my life that I had to pay tribute to them. And being in New York and with most of them living in New York, I really felt the urgency to do it so I set out on this journey and I made portraits of these women writers, and the writers are across all genres. They’re reporters, essayists, poets and song writers and I wanted to pay tribute to these women and also look at this community of writers in a different way and my different way would be to mix the genres up.
What’s the feedback been like so far?
People have taken to the exhibition in a very positive way. I had someone tell me the exhibition was mind-blowing. That really made me feel great because I worked so hard and I put so many hours and months into this. I mean, I really sacrificed everything for this show, and it was just me. I went around edited, developed and came up with the idea. I was a one-woman show and I worked very hard, so I’m just really happy that everyone appreciated the show. I did the show when I was working part-time. I was in school part time as well, so I was really happy that people appreciated it, because I had many sleepless nights and having to give in papers late because I had to edit the photos.
Speaking of your hard work; what steps did you take to put the project together once you decided to move forward with it?
I got the idea in 2008, even though I had a vague concept for what I wanted to do
for a very long time. I finally solidified it as something I wanted to do in August 2010. I went up to a few writers asked if they would be interested and they were. I had no gallery. I had nothing. I just told them I want to do this so I applied for a grant and I got rejected because I gave them a list of all these big writers like Toni Morrison and Edwidge Danticat, and they rejected me. When I called up the grant people–because you can call up and see what the notes were on your panel–they said they rejected me because they didn’t think I had access to these people. They were like, “Edwidge Danticat just won the MacArthur Genius Award, do you think that you could have access? Are you really going to be able to shoot this person?†So they rejected me but I just went ahead and started shooting.How did you get from idea to exhibiting in the Skylight Gallery?
I had heard about Skylight Gallery because I lived in the neighborhood and I had a friend that had a show there, so I told her that I wanted to do a show there and asked what I needed to do and she gave me the email for this one curator. They looked at the proposal and they loved it so they put me on the calendar. Then, I started shooting more and I just went down the line. I had a list of about 80 people and I started contacting them and then I started cutting the list. I just wanted a real solid group and so I got the list down to 40 people and I called most of them. I shot most of the people I wanted; but I also wanted Sonia Sanchez and I didn’t know how to get in contact with her but I knew that my friend April Silver of Akila Worksongs knew her so I told her about the project and she connected me with Sonia. And there was another writer I wanted that I didn’t think I would get; it was Susan Taylor. I asked April if she knew her and she did and she connected us. Those were the last people I shot and then the project was done.
Click here to continue reading…
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS! Join us for the landmark 10th Annual Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit hosted by State Farm, March 2—4, 2015, at Fort Lauderdale Harbor Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, Fort Lauderdale, FL. This exciting, one-of-a-kind executive leadership summit is designed to train, equip and encourage women to become industry leaders, learn career strategies, and discover proven work—life balance techniques. Register Now! https://blackenterprise.com/wps
For the most part, was the entire project funded out of pocket?
Tracy Capers, who is the Vice President of Development and Special Programs at Bed-Stuy Restoration Plaza, took a leap of faith and funded the exhibition first. I also got some money from Columbia University, which I used for promotional stuff and I used some of that money for traveling because I had to go to Miami, Philly, Bos
ton and Connecticut [for some of the shoots]. It was a grant through Columbia University in the research in African American studies and they have a project called for the Intellectual History of Black Women, and they wanted to come under me for the project because it fits right in with them, and so they helped out with that. I had a little bit of money to do those types of things and then I had a little bit of money for the videographer, because on some of the shoots I brought someone to videotape the women speaking. So I had a little bit of money and then the gallery paid for the rest of the stuff.How did you end up getting the word out for people to find you?
I did this project in isolation during the summer. When I was shooting it I didn’t say anything I just went and did it, so all this stuff happened at the end of the project. When I was 90% done I started talking about the project. I was like, “I’m shooting this project on Black women writers.†That would be my Facebook status and somebody from NYU thought it sounded good and they told me they had some new gallery space and asked if I wanted to show my project there. They wanted to do it right away but I told them I had to put it in Skylight Gallery first. So they have to wait. But they want it at NYU immediately after Skylight.
What do you want people to take away from this exhibit?
I want them to see the faces of some of the writers that they’ve been reading for so long. I want them to see a room full of very brilliant Black women who are confident and who are in a range of varieties and shapes, colors and nationalities and I want them to see all of that with that one thing in common that these women are writers. I want them to come away with a positive feeling and I want them to be inspired by some of the stories that the writers have. They’ve triumphed in getting published and getting their work out. I want people to see how far we have come because at one point in this country it was illegal to read and write, and here’s this room full of women who have thrived on writing and have made professional careers through writing. They have supported themselves and educated themselves through writing. This is how far we’ve come and we have an amazing literary cannon of women like Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. And there are people who are carrying on that tradition so nicely. This is our legacy and our history and we should be proud that this was here for evidence. Here are the women; here are the current writers that stand in that tradition.
What’s next for Her Word as Witness?
Her Word as Witness is traveling. It’s
going to Philly and going to Atlanta in 2013 and I would love to publish it as a coffee table book. I’m still shooting writers for the project as well. I kind of want it to be like I Dream a World, a book that came out in the ’80s of phenomenal Black women. I think that book has 70 people in it and my show has 76. Hopefully there were some people that I can reshoot. Like, I shot Terry McMillan but I didn’t approve her photo because it wasn’t shot in natural light and all the others were. I didn’t think the photos had that spark that I wanted to see so I have to reshoot her. She says we can reshoot so I’m starting reshoots and getting panels and discussions together. So that’s the gist of it all.What advice do you have for artists who are seeking grant money?
My whole thing is that I’m so determined that when I think to do something, a grant becomes secondary. If I want to do it, it’s going to get done. This show was going to get done regardless. I was about to save up for the show, because otherwise I have to wait for other people to validate me. I have to wait for these people to believe in me. I still applied for grants but that’s something that could be hit or miss so I was determined to do this whether I got a grant or not. I did another solo show before this one. It was on jazz and I didn’t use any grants. I funded it 100% on my own because I really believed in myself and I believed in the work I did and I didn’t I have time to wait. I’m not waiting for anybody.
Click here to see photo gallery excerpts from Barrayn’s Her Word as Witness exhibit
CELEBRATING 10 YEARS! Join us for the landmark 10th Annual Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit hosted by State Farm, March 2—4, 2015, at Fort Lauderdale Harbor Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, Fort Lauderdale, FL. This exciting, one-of-a-kind executive leadership summit is designed to train, equip and encourage women to become industry leaders, learn career strategies, and discover proven work—life balance techniques. Register Now! https://blackenterprise.com/wps