Omar, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA

Narrator: In 1992, Bey approached the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago about doing a project there. He began a residency with twelve high school students from three Chicago South Side schools.

Dawoud Bey: Young people became the focus of my work.

Narrator: Bey’s project, Class Pictures, soon expanded to include teenagers from across the United States.

Dawoud Bey: And I decided that I wanted to make a group of photographs that were a sort of snapshot of young people in America at that particular moment. And I really felt that it was important not only to have a visual representation of them in the photograph, but to also have their own self-representation through their words. Photographs are inherently mute. There’s a lot that they don’t tell you.

Narrator: Bey would photograph the teens in a classroom setting, after they had been given time to write descriptions of themselves. 

Dawoud Bey: They have amazing stories that they would tell us if only someone would ask. So, my work became a vehicle for them to extend themselves into the world in that kind of way. 

Omar, I think, is one of the most poetic self-descriptive statements. And I can’t remember the whole statement but I always remembered the last line because he said something like “sometimes I wonder what color my soul is, I hope that it is the color of heaven.” And each time I read his statement, it just comes alive all over again.