Darryl Richardson

Fábrica presents Jus Soli, the first installment of a three-part series of vignettes by self-taught photographer and experimental filmmaker Darryl Richardson (Chicago,1987).

Upon moving to Mexico in 2018 he learned about the often unacknowledged historical presence of African descendants in Mexico. The project, Jus Soli which translates to; right of the soil, concentrates on the Afro-Mexican community living in Costa Chica (Oaxaca) leading up to the census of 2020. This specific census was of historical significance as it was the first one (after the interim census in 2015) to acknowledge those of Afro-Mexican descent on the forms.

Richardson captured ways in which the community of Costa Chica navigates the duality of their African descent within the Mexican socio-political context. In this first installment he takes on invisibility as the leading vignette which he explores as the relationship between being both present and absent. Richardson considers the discrepancy between those two states a fundamental part of Blackness.

— Fábrica

"No matter geographically where you are in the diaspora we are all connected through the same questions and experiences. What I ultimately discovered is that their questions are my questions. Albeit Oaxaca, I find a lot of similarities in what I witnessed during my own upbringing in the South side of Chicago. The question: why? Across cultures, darker people suffer most. Why?” - Richardson

About the artist:

Darryl Richardson (born 1987, Chicago,IL) is a lens-based visual artist specializing in documentary portraiture and experimental filmmaking. He currently lives and works in Mexico City. He uses analog processes to explore themes around belonging and identity.