61 Black Women Give Testimonies for ‘A Seat at the Table’ with Solange

Have you seen Testimonies from the Table’s photographs of 61 black women and read what they have to say about their lives yet?

Before musician Solange’s performance at New York’s Guggenheim, Pakistani photographer Seher Sikandar was asked to create a conceptual project to do with Solange and her audience — giving rise to the idea of a scrapbook of testimonies, much like the scrapbooks we made and filled in for friends at the end of years in school. So Sikandar called 61 black women to her apartment in Brooklyn, took Polaroids of each woman, and glued them onto the pages of a book, asking them to write what they wanted next to them.

All at the same time, the stories are lovely, painful, encouraging, and terrifying to read. For instance:

“Every day I carry the extreme weight of needing to be fierce and the held together Black Superwoman. I need to carry and care for my family, protect and uplift my community, excel in my profession, and look great while doing it all,” says 38-year…

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