Officially active for less than twenty years (1966–1982) with chapters around the United States, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense indelibly pierced the public consciousness. All Power: Visual Legacies of the Black Panther Party (Minor Matters, 2016—for more information on the book please click here), was conceived by Michelle Dunn Marsh and edited by her with Negarra A. Kudumu to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Party. It evolved from correspondence and conversation with a select list of contemporary black artists ranging from 22 to 70 years of age, and located around the nation. In 2018 an exhibition was developed from the book and was on view in New York and in Washington state.

This conversation with photographer Robert Wade and the book’s editors will include presentation of select works from the book and exhibition, and the relevance of this project today.

Michelle Dunn Marsh is the co-founder of Minor Matters. Her career in publishing began in 1996 at the Aperture Foundation; she was senior editor of art + design at Chronicle Books, and has designed books for numerous museums, publishers, and individuals. She holds a BA from Bard College, where she sits on the alumni Board of Governors, and an MS in publishing from Pace University. Dunn Marsh was a tenured professor in design, and lectures about visual book publishing and photo literacy nationally.

Negarra A. Kudumu is an independent scholar and intellectual provocateur. Her practice is engaged in critical public discourse, praxis, and education about contemporary art and healing. Her intellectual interests reside at the intersections of contemporary art, curation and critical theory with a specific interest in the contemporary visual culture of the African continent, South Asia, and their respective diasporas.

Robert Wade lived in northern and southern California during most of the 1970s and 1980s before arriving in Seattle in 1989. He holds a BA in psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, and an MA in communication from Stanford University. Wade is an active events and documentary photographer, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Henry Art Gallery. He served as President of the Contemporary Art Council of the Seattle Art Museum, as a board member of the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, and as a board member of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.

Image (c) Robert Wade, Connie Matthews, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1969 from All Power: Visual Legacies of The Black Panther Party (Minor Matters, 2016)