Zun Lee: Father Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood

Zun Lee:
Father Figure

On View: February 3 – March 31, 2018

Bronx Documentary Center
614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx, NY 10451

Zun Lee: Father Figure: Exploring Alternate Notions of Black Fatherhood is both a documentary photography and personal visual storytelling, this award-winning project by Zun Lee provides insight into often-overlooked aspects of African-descended family life.

The Latin American Foto Festival is curated by Cynthia Rivera and Michael Kamber. 

Spanish translations by Maria de la Paz Galindo. 

This exhibition was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Through intimate black-and-white frames, Zun Lee offers an intimate view into the daily lives of Black men with whom Lee has worked closely since 2011 and who are parenting in a variety of socioeconomic and personal circumstances.

Lee brings into focus what pervasive father absence stereotypes have distorted-narratives by real fathers who are involved in their children’s lives, who may not be perfect – and do not have to be – but whose parental presence firmly rejects familiar media caricatures.

Father Figure exposes the viewer to aspects of Black masculinity that many have not seen, or perhaps do not want to see. It shows these men not as victims of their circumstances but as empowered agents in their own lives, as capable parents, and above all as loving, wholesome human beings.