Maya June Mansour

Courtesy of Maya June Mansour

Maya June Mansour is a photographer and writer originally from Nashville, Tennessee with roots in Black America, Palestine, and Iran. Maya's background in carceral studies and familial lineage informs her approach to image making and representation of herself and others. Her current body of work explores the intersection of embodied spirituality and sexual violence. Maya is one of the co-founders of Black Image Center, a community photography space in Los Angeles that redistributes the resources from the creative and entertainment industries in Hollywood to LA’s Black residents.

GM: What was your path to becoming a photographer?

MJM: I always loved taking photos, but it’s really my mom that stands at the beginning of my path to becoming a photographer. She noticed my desire to take photos at a young age and encouraged it, from giving me cameras and film to signing me up for photography classes at the local art college in Nashville, where I grew up. I always had a disposable or a toy camera with me, and in high school one of my friends gave me a Cannon AE-1 that to this day I still shoot most of my work on. When I was in high school, I started modeling professionally. Modeling exposed me to a lot of different photographers and styles of photography, and additionally made me intimately understand nuances of the relationship between a photographer and the person they ’re taking a photo of. I credit modeling with giving me a lot of the skills that I use as a photographer today.

When I went to college, I studied the American carceral system, along with the history of the art market through the lens of Indigenous makers. I didn’t take a lot of photos during that time, but I came back to photography the year after I graduated from undergrad. I was living in Chicago and spent a lot of time at Central Camera. During that time, I took a class that was based on The Photographer's Playbook at this really amazing community photo space, LATITUDE. LATITUDE changed the game for me because of how accessible their offerings were, and is the inspiration for a lot of my work at Black Image Center, a community art space that I co-founded after I moved to LA. After the pandemic hit, I started slowly taking more photos and putting myself out there as a “ photographer” , even though I have really been a photographer all along.

Maya June Mansour, Eleonor and Fabian, 2022

Maya June Mansour, Olivia, 2018

GM: Could you discuss your involvement with the Collective for Black Iranians? You recently worked on a project titled “Golden Crown” (2021) with them.

MJM: The Collective for Black Iranians is a much-needed call to integrate historically marginalized Black voices into SWANA discourses, specifically in the context of Iran. I worked with Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda, one of the founders of the Collective, to tell part of my family ’s story through “Golden Crown” , a short film that she directed and produced. Priscillia asked me to gather some family photos; it was a really wonderful experience to be able to share about both of my lineages in a way that felt full and whole. The Collective is doing really important work around sharing what’s going on Iran right now during the ongoing revolution, and I would recommend their Instagram page, @collectiveforblackiranians, to anyone interested in keeping up with what is happening on the ground.

GM: As you mentioned earlier, you co-founded the Black Image Center, an artist collective that now has a brick-and-mortar space. What has been your experience working with this group, and can you discuss any recent projects you ’ ve done with them?

MJM: Black Image Center was founded in the summer of 2020, in the midst of the racial reckoning after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. All of the co-founders are young, Black image makers based in LA. (Continued)

I discovered the group on Instagram in the very early days of the project, when it was essentially just an idea with a GoFundMe. For the last three years, we have each poured so much love and care into growing Black Image Center into a brick-and-mortar community art space that hosts events, workshops, and programming that supports Black photographers and storytellers. We are also really intentional to offer things that folks who don’t consider themselves photographers can participate in, like our Heirloom portrait sessions with Julien James and our Black Family Archive sessions, where folks can get their family photos digitized and reprinted on a sliding scale.

GM: You were recently selected for the 2022 Google Image Equity Fellowship; the award states that:

“The Fellows will each receive $20,000 in unrestricted funds to create an image-based project that explores and uplifts communities of color. ” What themes or topics are you looking to explore through this fellowship, and what are you interested in doing for your project?

MJM: For my project, I’m working on a series of self-portraits that explore themes of healing embodied sexual trauma, spirituality, and anger!

Maya June Mansour, Compton Cowboy, 2022

GM: Are there any contemporary or historical photographers that inspire your practice?

MJM: I spend a lot of my time at Black Image Center working with people’s family archives, and I’m continually inspired by Black folks’ ability to tell our own stories through our family records. We are truly rich with these images, [which are] visual acts of resistance against a world that doesn’t often deem us as being worthy of preservation. Some of the most amazing photos I’ ve seen are taken by dads and aunties whose names I don’t know and who don’t consider themselves to be photographers. Those unrestricted, intimate captures spark a lot of inspiration for me. They also give me hope that my descendants will see value in the visual language that I’m building now because of the interactions that I’ ve had with so many folks who are working really hard to preserve their family photos that were taken long before they were born.