Linda Foard Roberts: Lament | A Photographic Geography of Black History in the American South

Lament connects the tangibility of history and the geography of memory in the American South.

Through contemporary photographs, personal stories, essays, and quotes, Linda Foard Roberts's latest book connects the tangibility of history and the landscape (or geography) of memory to a greater understanding of the palpable presence of our shared past in everyday life. Roberts sees her photographic efforts as an ongoing contribution to truth-seeking by bearing witness to the silent stories encoded in our surroundings. Her work examines life, death, fundamental human rights, and excavations of narratives invisibly embedded in our lives. She has seen how such endeavors have the capacity to create opportunities for change, compassion, action, and justice. Lament is designed in two volumes housed in a cloth-covered slipcase. The first volume focuses on her images, while the second volume comprises a texts by renowned scholars and a poem. 

For this project, Roberts employed Civil War-era equipment-an 8x10-inch view camera with a Darlot brass barrel lens—and visited sites across the American South where devastating events in social history took place. This use of historical equipment invokes the temporal merging she seeks to capture in her work—the overlap of the evidence of our past with the present. Lament is designed in two volumes housed in a cloth-covered slipcase. The first volume focuses on her images, while the second volume comprises texts by scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., Cheryl Finley, Ph.D., Michelle Lanier, and Jennifer Sudul Edwards, Ph.D., and a poem by E. Ethelbert Miller.

Lament is designed in two volumes housed in a cloth-covered slipcase. The first volume focuses on her images, while the second volume comprises texts by scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D., Cheryl Finley, Ph.D., Michelle Lanier, and Jennifer Sudul Edwards, Ph.D., and a poem by E. Ethelbert Miller. Roberts's artwork is held in the collections of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art (Charlotte, NC), Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ), Gregg Museum of Art and Design (Raleigh, NC), Harry Ransom Center (Austin, TX), Mint Museum of Art (Charlotte, NC), Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, New Orleans Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art (Palm Beach, FL), North Carolina Museum of Art, and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans, LA).