The Block Museum’s latest exhibition, “Dissident Sisters: Bev Grant and Feminist Activism, 1968-72,” captures the spirit and solidarity of American protest through photographs by Brooklyn photographer and musician Bev Grant.
The exhibition opened Sept. 18 and will be on display until Dec. 1. Located on the first floor of the Block Museum, the showcase is free and open to the public.
Seventeen featured photographs highlight the intersectionality between three movements: the Black Panther Party, women’s liberation and protests against the Vietnam War. The photographs on display include children enjoying breakfast through the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program, the 1968 Miss America protest and a G.I. burning his draft card.
“My camera was my weapon or my tool to express my political views and to fight the oppression that was all around and to fight for liberation for women, for Black people (and) for whoever needed it,” Grant said.
Grant said she began taking photos in the late ’60s. She engaged in a practice she called “participant-based photojournalism,” documenting the movements while also fighting alongside them.
At the time, Grant’s photography was only seen on a small scale as Grant worked primarily for activist filmmaking group Third World Newsreel and occasionally shared photos with an underground newspaper called Liberation News Service.
Although Grant only took photos from 1968 to 1972, she kept her negatives long after. She rediscovered her photos in 2017 and spent that summer learning how to scan and digitize them. Grant is now represented by OSMOS, which facilitated the Block’s acquisition of her work.
The Block’s curatorial team discovered Grant’s photographs at an art exposition in 2022. The Block’s Academic Curator Corinne Granof said the team was immediately “struck by the power of them.”
“In some ways, the 17 photographs felt a little like they each had their own statement,” Granof said. “But then, we were able to bring in library material and create these larger stories.”
In “Dissident Sisters,” Grant’s photos are surrounded by buttons, news clippings and other pieces from the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections and University Archives.
Although the Block discovered Grant’s photos over 50 years after their conception, its staff believes their themes are still relevant.
“(The exhibition) showcases a long history of political activism and protest that is not unique to this moment,” said Lindsay Bosch, the Block Museum’s Associate Director of Communication, Marketing and Digital Strategy Lindsay Bosch. “I think our students will enjoy the opportunity to think about the really long arc of the ways that these dialogues have been in play throughout American history.”
Grant said her photography was a way to connect the oppression she has experienced as a woman to that of others, helping various groups combat injustice by drawing attention to their struggles and highlighting their humanity.
“I wasn’t looking for the militancy, you know, what the mainstream media was looking at,” she said. “I was looking for the heart.”
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