Alumna Joi West presents a solo exhibition at Paperworkers Local in Birmingham featuring works from their ongoing Southern Faces Project. They began the long-term project in 2012 to document the LGBTQIA+ community in Alabama. Joi West’s Southern Faces Project is supported with grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition opens July 15, 2021, with a reception from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
West is a documentary photographer and collector of stories based in Birmingham. Working from the point of view of a Black queer woman, they combine photography, audio, text and printmaking to create artwork that examines relationships within families in the LGBTQIA+ community in the South, delving into personal aspects of identity. West is the 2020 recipient of the Gay Burke Memorial Fellowship in Photographic Arts from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and a 2017 BFA graduate in photography and digital media.
Paperworkers Local, is a printmaking cooperative and exhibition space founded by two UA art alumni, Michael Merry and Roger Jones, in 2013. It is located at 2717 7th Avenue, South, Suite #203, in Birmingham’s Southside. Joi West’s Southern Faces Project will be up through August 15, 2021.
For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in art history and studio art, visit our Degree Programs page.