This Is Where We Find Ourselves by Njaimeh Njie

Issue 150

This Is Where We Find Ourselves began as a response to the pandemic, and the uprisings of the summer of 2020. As I started making pictures in my hometown of Pittsburgh, I realized I was gravitating towards sites that were connected to my personal history, my family’s history, and Black history in the city. The throughline is that many of these spaces have been shuttered, gentrified, or demolished altogether. This body of work is an exploration of how this legacy of loss has brought us to today, and it’s a meditation on the people, the memories and the communities that have brought us this far.

As a photographer and filmmaker Njaimeh Njie centers individual stories, pulling them forward from larger systems and power structures. Njie’s project, This Is Where We Find Ourselves, began through a commission from Silver Eye, funded by the Heinz Endowments, which asked artists to respond to the impacts of COVID in Pittsburgh and the discussions around systemic injustices that were prevalent in the spring and summer of 2020. Using this commission as a launching point, Njie’s project moves forward and backward in time, using contemporary imagery, archival family photos and the artist’s handwritten narrative to look at how the present moment has been exacerbated by decades of oppression and neglect in the Black communities of Pittsburgh.

Njaimeh Njie (she/her) lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA.
www.njaimehnjie.com | @en_jay_me

Images © Njaimeh Njie