Ayana V. Jackson’s work explores African and African Diaspora identities through varied photographic approaches ranging from reportage and portraiture to performance and studio based practice. Using her background in sociology, she creates bodies of work that in some cases address the history of photographic representation of the black body and in others explore the complexity and plurality of contemporary African descendent identity. In recent work she uses her own body to stage interventions that critique mid-19th and early 20th century colonial photography.