Nydia Blas explores Black power and pride via family portraits

Nydia Blas explores Black power and pride via family portraits
Love, You Came from Greatness — For her first major monograph, the photographer and educator returned to her hometown of Ithaca, New York, to create a layered, intergenerational portrait of its African American families and community.

Growing up in the predominantly white college town of Ithaca, New York, photographer and educator Nydia Blas found kinship among family photographs hung on the walls. 

Blas’s family arrived in Ithaca a century ago, settling into the historically Black neighbourhood of Southside which was home to a stop on the Underground Railroad. The community has nurtured a wealth of extraordinary talents including Alex Haley, Malcolm X’s biographer, Civil Rights activist Dorothy Cotton, Bishop Cecil A. Malone, and Beverly J. Martin (Blas’s aunt), for whom a local elementary school is named.

Despite being steeped in history, as a small town of 32,000, where less than 7% is Black, Blas remembers, “I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, and did not see myself too often in the place where I lived even though my family has been here over 100 years. We had beautiful photographs, formal portraits of my grandparents and great grandparents, and a lot of candid pictures that I saw as physical proof I came from greatness.”

Blas fell in love with photography as a teen, put her dreams on hold after becoming a mother and wife at 18 but she simply could not escape her fate. After receiving a digital camera as a gift in her mid 20s, she went on a trip to Guatemala, where she discovered her true calling and never looked back.

“The roles of mother and artist have always been intertwined because I didn’t have a choice,” says Blas. “By that time I was a single mother and I had to make life work, which may be why I first started photographing my kids, nieces, cousins, and friends. I was photographing people I felt close to because I think of the work as collaborative.”

With the publication of Love, You Came From Greatness (Ithaca Press), her first major monograph, Blas now returns to where it all began: Ithaca, past and present.

The project took root in 2021, when she received a commission from the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University to create a new body of work, in response to a collection of 18 family photo albums that chronicle the lives of Black families around the nation between 1860s–1980s.

Blas, who now lives in Atlanta, returned to Ithaca during the summer of 2022 and 2023 to photograph family and friends, crafting scenes that sparkled with the promise of paradise on earth. She then seamlessly weaved archival photographs drawn from her family albums along with those at Cornell throughout, crafting an intimate, intricately layered portrait of Black American family life suffused with mystery, power, poetry, and love.

“The core of my work is my love for people of African descent, and I wanted to use photography to talk about Black culture, Black history, sexuality, women, all of these things, in a poetic way. This world is really hard and heavy, but it’s also beautiful and magical. I think the best photography poses questions; it doesn’t answer them.”

Love, You Came From Greatness by Nydia Blas is published by Ithaca Press.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

Enjoyed this article? Follow Huck on Instagram.

Support stories like this by becoming a member of Club Huck.

Latest on Huck

How trans rights activism and sex workers’ solidarity emerged in the ’70s and ’80s
Activism

How trans rights activism and sex workers’ solidarity emerged in the ’70s and ’80s

Shoulder to Shoulder — In this extract from writer Jake Hall’s new book, which deep dives into the history of queer activism and coalition, they explore how anti-TERF and anti-SWERF campaigning developed from the same cloth.

Written by: Jake Hall

A behind the scenes look at the atomic wedgie community
Culture

A behind the scenes look at the atomic wedgie community

Stretched out — Benjamin Fredrickson’s new project and photobook ‘Wedgies’ queers a time-old bullying act by exploring its erotic, extreme potential.

Written by: Isaac Muk

“Welcome to the Useless Class”: Ewan Morrison in conversation with Irvine Welsh
Culture

“Welcome to the Useless Class”: Ewan Morrison in conversation with Irvine Welsh

For Emma — Ahead of the Scottish author’s new novel, he sat down with Irvine Welsh for an in-depth discussion of its dystopic themes, and the upcoming AI “tsunami”.

Written by: Irvine Welsh

“Struggle helps people come together”: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Music

“Struggle helps people come together”: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

Huck’s February interview — To hear more about the release of the indie darling’s first collaborative album, we caught up with her and Devra Hoff to hear about the record, motherhood in music and why the ’80s are back,

Written by: Isaac Muk

Nxdia: “Poems became an escape for me”
Music

Nxdia: “Poems became an escape for me”

What Made Me — In this series, we ask artists and rebels about the forces and experiences that shaped who they are. Today, it’s Egyptian-British alt-pop shapeshifter Nxdia.

Written by: Nxdia

Kathy Shorr’s splashy portraits inside limousines
Culture

Kathy Shorr’s splashy portraits inside limousines

The Ride of a Lifetime — Wanting to marry a love of cars and photography, Kathy Shorr worked as a limousine driver in the ’80s to use as a studio on wheels. Her new photobook explores her archive.

Written by: Miss Rosen

Sign up to our newsletter

Issue 81: The more than a game issue

Buy it now