Rahim Fortune uses photography to ask fundamental questions about American identity. Focusing on the narratives of individual families and communities, he explores shifting geographies of migration and resettlement, and the way that these histories are written on the landscapes of Texas and the American South.
Fortune is part of a new generation of photographers who are reclaiming America’s photographic history, uncovering the ways that racial injustice has acted in the past and the present to shape American visual identity. Both his editorial and his fashion work are rooted in classical social documentary photography, but he approaches this genre from a fresh perspective, pushing against some of its prevailing conventions. In place of images that spectacularise poverty and marginalisation amongst minority communities, Fortune incorporates elements of the vernacular in his practice in order to show the everyday lives of underrepresented individuals and groups.
Part of what Fortune enjoys most about photography is the opportunity to interact with people. He brings a strong sense of ethics and responsibility towards the subjects that he photographs, treating them with sensitivity and compassion. His practice also involves extensive research into photographic history, in order to situate himself critically in a space from which people of colour have customarily been excluded. Through his work, Fortune seeks to understand the multiple narratives that have created America as a nation, to portray this diversity, and thereby, to find empowerment and agency.
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