FotoFocus 2024 | Work | Marcus Morris

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I Was Here is an exhibition of work by emerging and underrepresented lens-based artists, curated by April Sunami and Marcus Morris (Photography, 2011). This exhibition at Columbus College of Art & Design's Beeler Gallery, 60 Cleveland Ave. is on view Thursday, Sept. 5–Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024 as part of the FotoFocus Biennial: backstories. I Was Here brings together the diverse mediums of photography, video, performance, collage and mixed media to explore the essential act of image-making and storytelling.

"I—(or a specific name)—was here" is a familiar declaration inscribed on the walls of shared spaces, from bathroom stalls to park benches to, yes, even gallery walls, marking a person's time and presence in a specific place. In 2024, in a social and political climate in which complicated histories revolving around Black people face the threat of erasure, we find that sharing stories through the lens of Black creators and cultural producers is especially critical. In I Was Here, declare their presence as they delve into the myriad ways of being and of existing in our ever-complicated society. Through this perspective, artists in I Was Here offer insights on disability, gender and sexual identity, survival, imagination, aging, ancestry, community, and more. Much of the Columbus-based artists' work in I Was Here was created for the exhibition.

Several of the Columbus-based FotoFocus presentations, including that at CCAD, are influenced by the life and work of the Harlem-based, Detroit-born artist Ming Smith. In I Was Here, curators Sunami and Morris aim for the art in the exhibition to evoke her perspective of "celebrating the struggle, the survival and finding grace in it."