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Shaun Connell

Shaun Connell

UK

Beyond Brixton: What Bumpkin Files Reveals About Black Britain

Beyond Brixton: What Bumpkin Files Reveals About Black Britain

A Different Picture of Black Britain Open the Bumpkin Files archive and one thing becomes immediately apparent. Nobody looks as though they are trying to make history. There are family gatherings, school portraits, birthday parties and children standing proudly beside bicycles. Parents smile into cameras in front gardens. Relatives gather

Stop chasing crumbs. Build your own legacy.

Stop chasing crumbs. Build your own legacy.

The photograph and the question of authority Carrie Mae Weems stands behind a wooden table, both hands resting firmly on its surface. A hanging lamp casts a circle of light around her face while the rest of the room recedes into shadow. Behind her hangs a framed picture. To one

Blackness doesn’t need to be defined by only struggle

Blackness doesn’t need to be defined by only struggle

What we learn to see For much of photography's history, Black life has entered the frame through hardship. Cameras arrived at moments of protest, poverty, violence, or resistance. These images mattered. Many still do. They documented realities that demanded attention and challenged injustices that could not be ignored.

Wi Likkle But Wi Tallawah

Wi Likkle But Wi Tallawah

"Wi likkle but wi tallawah" is one of Jamaica's most enduring declarations of self understanding. The phrase acknowledges the island's small size while rejecting the assumption that size determines significance. It is an answer to anyone who mistakes geography for influence, population for power,

56 Black Men: Reframing Black male identity

56 Black Men: Reframing Black male identity

The gaze comes first The first thing you notice is not the hoodie. It is the gaze. One after another, the men in Cephas Williams' 56 Black Men look directly into the camera. There is no performance of toughness. No attempt to entertain. No effort to soften themselves for

What Zun Lee saw

What Zun Lee saw

Beyond the stereotype Zun Lee's Father Figure is often discussed as a corrective to stereotypes of Black fatherhood. The project emerged from Lee's own experience of fatherlessness and from his desire to photograph forms of Black masculinity that rarely appear in mainstream media. Across the series,

What Khadija Farah saw

What Khadija Farah saw

Four women beneath an open sky Four women stand beneath an open sky, their figures framed against the vastness of the Kenyan landscape. They hold necklaces, bracelets and beaded ornaments in their hands. There is no dramatic action to explain the scene. The women are not making jewellery, selling it