Milky Way
- On View
- Visual Arts Gallery
- Museum Maps
- Objects in this Location
- Exhibition
- Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience.
- Photograph by
- Flash, Lola, American, born 1959
- Subject of
- Flash, Lola, American, born 1959
- Date
- 2021
- Medium
- ink on paper
- Dimensions
- H x W (sheet): 24 × 36 in. (61 × 91.4 cm)
- H x W (image): 22 1/2 × 30 1/16 in. (57.2 × 76.3 cm)
- Caption
- Throughout the self-portrait series syzygy, the vision, photographer Lola Flash (they/them) dons a space helmet, an orange prison uniform, and handcuffs. “Heavy on my mind is America’s mass incarceration and the question of breaking free,” Flash writes of the series, which also reflects their personal experiences with the police. Flash was arrested in 2008 “for walking while Black.” Their teaching license was suspended, leaving them unemployed for six months. Although syzygy, the vision began as a response to Afrofuturism, it expanded with the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd’s killing to include themes of mass incarceration and Black Lives Matter. Like much of Flash’s work, the images confront issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and ageism.
- Description
- An inkjet print self-portait depicting the photographer, Lola Flash, as the lone figure at a walk-up ice cream shop. A large black and white sign above the stand reads [MILKY WAY]. Flash wears a bright orange prison uniform over a long-sleeved white t-shirt, white sneakers, and a futuristic white helmet with blue visor. They stand sideways to the camera, walking away from the shop, holding a soft-serve twist cone with both hands in front of them. Their wrists are bound with bright orange handcuffs. There is a “NO PARKING” stenciled on the pavement in front of the kiosk ordering windows, and four yellows stanchions in a row in front of the ordering windows. There are no marks or inscriptions, front or back.
- Place depicted
- Villas, Cape May County, New Jersey, United States, North and Central America
- Portfolio/Series
- syzygy, the vision series
- Classification
- Photographs and Still Images
- Movement
- Afrofuturism
- Type
- portraits
- inkjet prints
- Topic
- Black geographies
- Freedom
- Identity
- LGBTQ
- Photography
- Prisons
- Race discrimination
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, purchased through the American Women's History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative
- Object number
- 2021.57.7
- Restrictions & Rights
- © Lola Flash
- Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.