From Haarlem to Harlem (2018)

Fatigued by incessant news of African American people being shot and killed, and with the election as the final straw, artist Alanna Airitam decided create a body of work to portray black people as she knows them to be, which is far from the media's persistently negative narrative. "I was tired of the narrative that we aren't worthy of being treated with respect, that we aren't beautiful, that we don't belong," she says. Alanna set out to prove these negative messages false with images that reveal the "true grace, pride, beauty, power, and strength" of black people in the face of all they have suffered.