Activists

Author Name: Alexander Gouletas

Author Location: Chicago, IL, United States

Author Background: I am a commercial portrait photographer that became interested in reportage work after the Laquan McDonald shooting scandal of 2015. I wanted to use my abilities to subvert a misrepresented narrative, to show beauty where we were told there was a broad, benign, and bleak struggle for equity.

My goal is to represent my city in a compelling way. I want to make work that represents a full spectrum of emotion. The joy and the sorrow, the humility and the aggrandizement, the contempt, the fear, the exuberance.

I strive to make good work that doesn't redact from the message. The subjects, and the people that are attached to them deserve the attention, care and nuance of an artist and not a quick headline. I use my skill to elevate rather than oppress.

As I’ve covered police reform, I’ve begun to see how this affected everything from the school to prison pipeline, workers rights, gender, prison reform, free speech, media representation and systemic oppression.

Being a portrait photographer has impacted my journalism work, and being a journalist has informed my professional career. Identity can be an action of protest; there are subtler forms of protest alive in the joy and rage of life; I strive to show this subtle protest through embracing rather than minimizing the people I am honored enough to photograph.

Submission Statement:

“I was just amazed at the incredible injustice and brutality,” Black Lives Matter Chicago co-founder Aislinn Pulley.

“And I was, like,’No. No. No. I’m not moving again,’” Taylor said. “And I just got the will to stand up and fight. And the more I started to stand up in these meetings, the more people would come up to me after the meetings, like, ‘You right. You right.’” Ald. Jeanette Taylor 20th ward Chicago Quote from the 'Black Folks Can’t Get No Rest'

DeCarri Robinson organizer of the Stripper Strike Chicago demonstration. Of Those impacted Economically by Covid-19. Sex workers have no worker protection. “Our income is taxed and we have to pay the house in order to work, but we don’t benefit from it,” Robinson said. “All we got when things shut down was a text message saying that we were out of a job.” “We’re fighting for the human rights that you are granted at every place you work,” Robinson said. “Why is it okay for me to be assaulted?” DeCarri Robinson This image appeared in the Triibe "Who do we mean when we say ‘Black Lives Matter?’

Activist Zola Chatman in Her Home “Whiteness in America, that system thrives on Black people — Black women, the identities of Black women and Black trans women as well — being oppressed and marginalized to the point where they are considered worthless, for a lack of better words,” “Although there may be white allies who voiced a desire to make those changes, or voiced a desire to create spaces for those things to be overthrown or revolutionized, no white person wants to give us their power in a way that completely lets that system be flipped on its head,”

Comments from the judges:

Karen Dias: “Striking portraits and captions in this series.”

Katie Jett Walls: “Strong portrait skills, especially the two stand-out portraits of Ms. Chatman and Ms. Robinson. I appreciate this approach to documenting a community, because captivating portraits have the power to change perceptions. These portraits (and the strong captions accompanying them) make me want to know these women.”