Join us for a conversation with Dee Dwyer and Keyonna Jones, the fourth event in our On Protest and Mourning Virtual Dialogue Series.  Photographer Dee Dwyer, based in Southeast, Washington, D.C.,  will share her personal and professional mission to counter the misrepresentation of the Southeast community with more genuine documentation. Through her series, Justice for Deon Kay, in which she portrays a D.C. neighborhood trying to make sense of the killing of 18-year old Deon Kay by a police officer, Dwyer will talk about how these images also indict the systems that have failed a community in need. 

Dwyer will be in conversation with Keyonna Jones, a D.C.-based artist and educator and one of the leading artists behind the street-wide painting of “Black Lives Matter” that was installed blocks from the White House and became a global symbol of art and activism. The conversation will be hosted by Grace Aneiza Ali, curator of On Protest and Mourning.

Our On Protest and Mourning digital exhibition is a gathering of photographers and filmmakers whose work reveals how as a community, a nation, and a diaspora we grapple with anger, loss, and grief in response to the ongoing state violence and police brutality perpetrated against Black bodies. Their poignant and timely work helps us to navigate the questions: While we engage in protest and uprising, how can we also mark the lives that have been irreparably damaged or lost? How do we create rituals and make spaces for mourning?

Dee Dwyer

Dee Dwyer is a photographer from Southeast, Washington, D.C. Her work has been shown in exhibitions such as PhotoSCHWEIZ, Photoville, Catchlight, among others and featured in publications such as Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BET, The Guardian, Bloomberg Businessweek and more. She works as a photojournalist at the DCist where she focuses on communities of color. She holds a BFA in Filmmaking and Digital Production from The Art Institute of Washington and has studied at The Art Institute of Miami.

Keyonna Jones

Keyonna Jones is an artist and educator born and raised in Washington, D.C. Last summer, she was one of the leading artists behind the street-wide painting of “Black Lives Matter,” installed at Black Lives Matter Plaza, blocks from the White House—a symbol of art and activism that emerged as a defining image of the global protests against racial injustice. Jones has received two Edward Murrow Awards for her work as a news producer with News Radio WNEW.  Jones is the founder of Congress Heights Arts and Culture Center (CHACC) with a mission to expose, educate and inspire her East of the River community through art and culture.