About the Initiative
Vision & Justice is a catalytic civic initiative that generates original research, curricula, and programs that reveal the foundational role visual culture plays in generating equity and justice in America.
The initiative builds awareness of the impact of images in the public realm and their capacity to shape the interwoven fabric of individual identity, community collaboration, and democratic participation.
Through institutional collaborations, leadership convenings, and public programs, Vision & Justice serves as a partner and resource for civic and cultural leaders in fostering representational literacy and justice.
“How many movements began when an aesthetic encounter indelibly changed our inherited perceptions of the world?”
— Sarah Elizabeth Lewis
History
Vision & Justice is founded and spearheaded by art and cultural historian Sarah Elizabeth Lewis.
Visual representation, racial justice, and democracy in the United States have long been the focus of Lewis’ research practice, and underpin the Vision & Justice initiative, along with several key cornerstones, including:
The Vision & Justice Convening, a ground-breaking gathering inaugurated in 2019 to bring together prominent thought leaders to examine the role of the arts in understanding the nexus of art, race, and justice. The program for the first event, spanning two days, featured performances by Carrie Mae Weems, Wynton Marsalis, and Amanda Gorman and panel discussions with Ava DuVernay, Chelsea Clinton, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Nicole Fleetwood, Hank Willis Thomas, Bryan Stevenson, and many more.
The Vision & Justice Book Series, co-edited with Leigh Raiford and Deborah Willis, is an ongoing publishing endeavor designed to address past omissions and contribute to a richer, more racially inclusive story of lens-based practices. Launched in partnership with Aperture in 2024, its first publication is a collection of essays by Maurice Berger, edited by his husband Marvin Heiferman, Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images.
The 2016 special issue of Aperture magazine dedicated to the role of photography in the African American experience, which Lewis guest edited and themed “Vision & Justice.” The issue features a range of artistic contributions and voices across disciplines including, Jennifer Blessing, Dawoud Bey, Teju Cole, Awol Erizku, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Thelma Golden, Katori Hall, Margo Jefferson, Deana Lawson, Alicia Hall Moran, Jason Moran, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Nell Irvin Painter, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Salamishah Tillet, and Bradford Young.
Harvard University course “Vision and Justice: The Art of Race and American Citizenship” pioneered by Lewis in 2016 and made part of the university’s core curriculum in 2017.
The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, Lewis’ 2014 book, which crystallized her thinking on the mobilizing power of aesthetic experiences.
Like the initiative itself, these key cornerstones take conceptual inspiration from the abolitionist and great nineteenth century thinker Frederick Douglass’ understudied Civil War speech, “Pictures and Progress,” about the transformative power of pictures to create a new vision for the nation. Built upon Douglass' historic scholarship and catalyzed by these contemporary projects, Vision & Justice is at the forefront of representational justice in the U.S.