Aperture / 259

Liberated Threads: Stories of Black Style

 

Guest edited by Tanisha C. Ford, Liberated Threads explores style and fashion as a language of Black resistance, refusal, and joy. This issue features image-makers who remix and reimagine twentieth-century “soul style,” creating a contemporary dialogue between photographers, filmmakers, and stylists from around the world.

 

Exploring fashion and style as a political language and tool of resistance in the African diaspora. 

 

Aperture’s Summer issue highlights image makers around the world who are exploring style and fashion as a language of Black resistance, refusal, and joy. Guest edited by the writer and researcher Tanisha C. Ford and titled after her 2015 book, Liberated Threads, this edition features photographers, stylists, and filmmakers who remix, reimagine, and in some cases, reject the aesthetic and politics of what she calls the “soul style” of the twentieth century—sparking a bold conversation about style’s ability to create possibilities for solidarity and selfhood today. 

 

Features

 

LIBERATED THREADS

Guest edited by Tanisha C. Ford

 

LIVING ARCHIVE

Seydou Keïta’s revelatory portraits of Malian life

Kobby Ankomah Graham

 

LONDON CALLING

Liz Johnson Artur captures street style’s collision with high fashion

Gazelle Mba

 

HAIR STORIES

Nikki Nelms transforms hairstyling into conceptual art

madison moore

 

THE DIRECTOR

Melina Matsoukas creates space for Black stories in Hollywood and beyond

A conversation with Solange Knowles

 

CÔTE D’IVOIRE DREAMING

The brooding, buoyant intimacies of Nuits Balnéaires

Tiana Reid

 

FAMILY ALBUM

Silvia Rosi reimagines the African diaspora in Europe

Vanessa Peterson

 

TURNING THE PAGE

The legacy of Honey magazine

Amy DuBois Barnett

 

THERE ARE NEW SUNS

Two artists on the shifting meanings of self-representation and creative courage

A conversation with Ja’Tovia Gary and Fatima Jamal

 

PICTURE MAN

Devin Allen’s profound record of everyday life in Baltimore

Rikki Byrd

 

PROOF OF LIFE

The quiet world-building of the fashion stylist Yashua Simmons

A conversation with Darnell L. Moore

 

Columns

 

AGENDA

Wolfgang Tillmans, Stan Douglas, Marta Astfalck-Vietz, Annegret Soltau

 

DISPATCHES

Dalia Al-Dujaili on the efflorescence of Baghdad’s photo world

 

REDUX

Robert Slifkin on James Welling’s journey into light and darkness

 

STUDIO VISIT

Somak Ghoshal on Bharat Sikka’s creative New Delhi workspace

 

SPOTLIGHT

Eli Cohen on 2025 Aperture Portfolio Prize winner Alana Perino’s elegiac search for meaning in a Florida beach town

 

CURRICULUM

Jack Davison on Flickr, mugshots, and The Simpsons

 

ENDNOTE

Durga Chew-Bose on adapting Bonjour Tristesse to the screen

 

The PhotoBook Review

THE ERISKAY CONNECTION

Aaron Schuman talks to the duo about their publishing project

 

THE FACTORY

Marigold Warner visits Twelvebooks’s new home in east Tokyo

 

GRAPHIC CONTENT

Christopher Hawthorne on photography and type

 

Reviews of photobooks by Mike Brodie, Joaquim Paiva, Lele Saveri, and Noriko Shibuya

 

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Aperture magazine, founded in 1952 and based in New York City, is an international quarterly journal specializing in photography. It features photographs by established and emerging photographers, as well as artists experimenting with photo related media. Each issue is usually themed and includes writings by critics, scholars, photography practitioners, and others involved in the field of photography.