Proof of Process: Documentation Workshop with Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

Artists engaged in a 6 day-long workshop that will guide them in documenting their artworks to serve as a foundation for their personal archive. Activities include exploring archiving methods, the creation of photographic and video representations of artworks and objects; creating an artist statement, biography and CV and art provenance (the artworks’ history, ownership, and exhibition record).

The workshop took place from 9am to 5pm from Monday the 29th of August to Monday the 5th of September, excluding the weekend. Artists brought in objects and various artworks to be photographed/documented, as well as worked on their artist statements & biographies!

Facilitated by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn. Instructional sessions of the workshop will be recorded and made available on the website.

Laylah Amatullah Barrayn is a documentary photographer and writer. She is the co-author of the independently published MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, the first anthology in nearly 30 years that highlights photography produced by women of African descent. Barrayn is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. Her work has been included in books like Black: A Celebration of a Culture edited by Dr. Deborah Willis, Photography, A Feminist History by Emma Lewis and Streams of Consciousness: Bamako Encounters—African Biennale of Photography edited by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. Barrayn’s personal and professional projects have taken her to Minneapolis to Malaysia to Martinique, among many global locales where she focuses her inquiries on Black diasporic communities with a special interest in religious traditions and the experiences of women. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions at The Museum of the African Diaspora San Francisco and The Taubman Museum of Art (VA). In 2018, she was included as one of the Royal Photographic Society’s (UK) Hundred Heroines. Barrayn earned an MA in Arts Politics from New York University. She is currently working on a book on contemporary Black photographers.