About-Face

Black Girl Miracle
Jan 19, 2020
1 min read

Updated: May 8

about-face

noun

/əˌboutˈfās/

(military) To turn so as to face the opposite direction; a complete reversal of direction, opinion, or perspective.
an invitation to reconsider the stories we’ve inherited about beauty, embodiment, and worth—and turn toward a more truthful way of seeing ourselves

About-Face is an ongoing visual storytelling series exploring the evolving relationship Black women have with our bodies—especially in the context of family, faith, and social relationships.

Long before many of us have the language to describe it, we begin absorbing ideas about beauty, desirability, modesty, femininity, and worth. Some of those messages are spoken aloud. Others are inherited in silence.

Through portraiture and intimate conversation, About-Face invites Black women to revisit the stories that shaped us—our earliest memories of being seen, the beliefs we internalized about our bodies, and the ways we have learned to navigate visibility, shame, performance, and belonging.

This project resists society’s often singular definitions of confidence and beauty, making room instead for honesty, complexity, and reimagining—opening space for a more expansive way of seeing ourselves.

Read the interviews →