YABA AMGBORALE BLAY
Art and Change Grant 2010 

Yaba Amgborale Blay is a professor of Africana Studies and Women and Gender Studies. Yaba combines her academic research and love of photography into visual learning tools. She believes that art can be used to transforms people’s consciousness, facilitate critical thinking and inspire people to “do something” with the information that they learn. Yaba is in the process of producing (1)ne Drop, a self-published creative presentation of photographs, personal narratives, and essays exploring the varied faces of Blackness—from the passé blanc Creole from New Orleans to the Puerto Rican Boricua of North Philadelphia. Her hope is that in visually displaying images of a wide variety of people who self-identify as ‘Black’, the book will challenge narrow, yet popular notions of what Black is and/or what Black looks like, moving away from definitions based on visual accessibility.

Video produced by Tatiana Bacchus (ACG '09)