“In February, before we knew COVID-19 as intimately as we do now, I left New York City (and its vanity and luster) for Southern Maryland's semirural fringe. My childhood home, as it were. I set off to investigate social institutions apropos of my own identity, expecting that, through making pictures, I'll see the historical failures of our history and my place within that history with a stronger sense of clarity.”

“What I've seen so far is death. Death of my uncle and countless others who've lost encounters with the novel coronavirus. Death of too many black men and women at the hands of deeply flawed American institutions. Death of our understanding of normalcy.

Perhaps that's clarity, after all. And the great American iniquity is more discernable, more palpable than ever.”

“If we have to witness more death, let it be of the political binary, the center's indelible subjugation of the margin, and the idea that there is any greatness in American history to be revived.”

Website: www.tajreed.work

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