Visualizing Masculinity
The dominant perception of certain groups in America is shaped by how they’re presented in the media. This can in-turn skew the lens through which individuals within these groups view themselves.
Joshua Rashaad McFadden has been exploring topics related to black masculinity and identity for years. The Rochester-based artist has released visual works that focus on people, their experiences, and the glimpses they provide into themes tied to identity, masculinity, history, race, and sexuality.
His attention has been primarily centered on young black men, a group he feels have been poorly represented by the American media. McFadden cites the incident surrounding Trayvon Martin as being the defining moment that that drove him to seek better media representation for black men in America.
He believes that the media present young black males such as Trayvon Martin as unnecessarily aggressive and dangerous. McFadden has since worked to provide others with a more honest understanding of what black masculinity actually is and isn’t.
McFadden took his first photography class at Elizabeth State University in North Carolina, and earned a BA in Fine Art at the institution. He then attended Savannah College of Art and Design, where he received his Master of Fine Art (MFA) in photography.
His 2018 photo essay I Am A Man was assembled using his research on the topic of masculinity at Morehouse College. The work draws its name from one of the slogans at the civil rights strike where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968.
The photo essay highlights subjects of home, family, activism, and manhood. With this piece he sought to explore ideas relating to contemporary relationships, social justice, and manhood using photographs and personal essays by young black men.
Following the release of I Am A Man, McFadden moved back to Rochester and began reflecting on the life he lived growing up in the city with his three brothers. He began looking into his family history and learnt of his grandfather’s interest in photography, something he had previously been unaware of.
This inspired McFadden to widen his lens to include stories from African Americans of all backgrounds to highlight the diversity of lives they live. His next project Come to Selfhood was created with the goal of expanding the limited concepts of “black masculinity” and as well as highlighting the multilayered nature of identity and how it’s perceived.
Come to Selfhood was created using portraits that McFadden’s took of his own family members The project holds personal meaning for him and he hopes its underlying message is heard far and wide - “Black men are not all the same, and we don’t have to conform to traditional and gender normative constraints of the old world”.
McFadden is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. He was featured on Time magazine’s list of “12 African American Photographers You Should Follow” in 2017.
