Da’Shaunae Marisa’s floral adornments of archival imagery highlight the “undeniable beauty of Black people”

Da’Shaunae Maria’s creative career began in photojournalism, where she crafted photo stories with ties to the Midwest; her work has since touched the pages of publications like The National Geographic, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Da’Shaunae was drawn to the medium as it provided way to “communicate the beauty and complexity of Black life in America and around the world”, she says. But, over the years, the Cleveland-born, LA-Based artist has began asking herself questions about “the issues we face as Midwest Americans that photojournalism alone [can’t] quite answer”. As a result, a new strand of Da’Shaunae’s practice has grown in recent years, turning her focus to personal life experiences, using fine art as a way to bridge the gaps.

The project, titled Ephemeral Roots, is a collection of imagery adorned with thoughtful floral arrangements. It began back in 2020 when the artist’s mother passed away: “With the craziness of the world at the time and not having the finances to honour my mother with a proper funeral, I decided to start using this process of floral collage as a secondary honouring,” says Da’Shaunae.

Soon, the project began to pour out from its intimate beginnings, and Da’Saunae’s process was adopted as a tool to honour the stories of strangers and their loved ones. In search of images to adorn, Da’Shaunae “started by sifting through local thrift stores in LA Cleveland to see what treasures I might find”, she says. “To my surprise, I discovered a large collection of forgotten and discarded photographs, dating from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. These images capture moments of joy, such as birthdays, newborns coming home, graduations, and grandparents surrounded by family.”

Amongst the happier memories found in these fragments of family archives, the artist found images that “starkly reflect the racial tension and injustices of their time”. The artist researched notes found on the back of photographs, addresses and stamps, to dive into the history behind a number of the faces in the collection, piecing together a context that brought life to each photograph.

“Whatever information I uncover, I use flowers to soften and enhance the stories these photos tell,” she says. In her reimagining of an image of the Hartford Basketball team, she “used flowers to raise questions about masculinity”, she says, using floral arrangements to “prompt reflection on paths to success for Black men and the stereotypes surrounding the dream of becoming a successful athlete.” Grieving just how many of these young men “pursued that dream, only to face harsh realities – including the racism and systemic oppression that confined them to certain roles”.

In a thrift store in Cleveland, Da’Shaunae discovered a primary school class photo from the 1960s that captures “an entirely white class except for one adorable boy of colour standing in the front row with an awkward smile”. The artist painted over a dark picture of isolation with a circle of bright petals. Da’Saunae adorns the subject until his “brightness and beauty become so undeniable that other children have no choice but to see his true essence,” she says. “I try to rewrite that narrative. Each petal I place is representative of something he carried or deserved – confidence and courage to keep going.”

With these natural interventions, the artist hopes to challenge the ways in which an image’s context can be transformed – “how an image may evolve in the minds of the viewers”, and where floral adornments are a site for healing and reimagining injustice. Da’Saunae’s blooming heirlooms are a way for her to “challenge and transform the negative stereotypes that have been imposed on, and widely accepted about Black people in the U.S”, she explains. “I ask myself: How can I soften concepts like mass incarceration or the trope of the ‘deadbeat dad’ and juxtapose them with uplifting ideas, such as being the first in one’s family to graduate from college? My intention is to highlight the undeniable beauty of Black people. If society insists on positioning us as ‘other’ then I aim to make that ‘otherness’ beautiful.”