Rob Ferrell

Rob Ferrell is a Baltimore-based artist, organizer, archivist, and designer. His lens-based artwork bears witness to the magic, joy, and transformation of Black organizing. His most recent body of work, the Amandla series, is an exploration of the generative nature of Black Power through portraiture of Black freedom fighters and organizers inside maroon spaces—physical and spiritual spaces liberated from an oppressive society. Rob is dedicated to visually archiving the Movement for Black Lives during his lifetime. You can follow along the journey on instagram @bmore_radical.

Rob is a senior organizer and founding member of Organizing Black: a grassroots member-led organization in Baltimore City that focuses on transformational direct action, political education, and participatory governance. He is also a national member of BYP100 and an alumni of BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity).

Rob Ferrell is grounded in the Black Radical Tradition and fighting for the liberation of ALL Black people, by any means necessary.

Rob Ferrell, Interviewed by Megan Spears

October 2020

Megan: What do you do and why?

Rob: I am a photographer that focuses on archiving the Black radical experience, the Black radical tradition through organizing in the city of Baltimore and nationally. So I turn my camera onto the physical spaces that occupy with other Black organizers documenting processes, meetings, gatherings, protests and public facings activations of Black people. Also a portrait photographer for Black organizers, and it’s a way for me to allow them to be seen because a lot of times the work is very much dirty work that not everyone sees and folks that do see them they only really see them as a character, or you know this type of public facing figure, and not a full human being of a Black person. So it’s a way for me to build relationships with my comrades. So I go through a centering process with them where we drown ourselves in our bodies and in our experiences and share with each other our commitments in the work. And that’s a beautiful experience and very connecting and deeply moving to share what you most care about and are committed to and also to witness that from another person.

So that kind of grounds my practice of making portraits with Black organizers, and then I ask them to embody their commitment and allow them to have freedom in how they pose and then also how and where they want to be photographed. The idea is that the portraits are oriented around Black maroon space, which is the idea the idea that Black people are able to liberate themselves and create space outside of white supremacy, patriarchy, transphobia, etc. So that’s where I photograph these folks and so it’s a process to help folks be and feel seen, and to also again kind of further the archive process of documenting who's doing the work right now.

So I do the work, why do I do the work? Because it's one of the skills I can bring, and I think it's really important for folks to start with what they know or what they do well when it comes to activism and organizing. I have a talent of photography, I could easily be making commercial work or whatever that’s not oriented around or aligned with organizing activism, but to me it makes sense and also time wise I can make it one thing versus two separate things. There's one practical reason, but it's also to me about the refining and creating narratives around the work that we do instead of fools who are telling our stories for us. So that’s why I’m really interested and passionate about archiving. I'm creating history as we do the thing.

Me: And you're doing it in a cool way that people are more interested in than reading or something. You know like I feel like looking at photographs are so much more interesting and can be so much more powerful than sometimes just an article and what not.

Rob: Yeah it's definitely an accessible medium for folks and then also utilizing social media as a way and a place to conduct a general political education through the captions and the content that I’m posting with the images. It can teach folks about certain concepts that we are working on and the movement is really trying to move forward. And some folks, for example, do understand or don’t understand what defunding police means, and through the work that I’m posting I can give a deeper context. So like it's kind of a digital organizing space on social media, being able to gather people around ideas and ask them to do things. Right, like go follow this person or support this campaign or whatever. It's pretty cool and it's coming together.

Me: Is there something in particular that inspired you to do this?

Rob: Like I said before, starting with what you know and what you already can offer. When people come into movement they are often like, 'what do I do, where do I start, how do I plug in?' and they kind of get paralyzed by the not knowing, or the inaction. And for me it was like, I’m already a photographer. I’m a professional photographer so I'll just bring my camera and then I can utilize that. So it started with me having confidence with using my medium and then just figuring it out as I go. So like I shot photographs of protests for years – 4 or 5 years before I really "did" anything with them - I didn’t have a dedicated place to show them or a fine art career at the time. I was just making work because that was what I was called to do, or knew that I could do. And over time of growing as an organizer and artist I realized that like this is really part of my role with the work, the social justice and racial justice work that we are doing. But also as I developed my artist career, this is the kind of work that I want to be doing so this is kind of both selfish and communal serving communion.

Me: just curious but where have you traveled for your protests, have you gone anywhere far?

Rob: I mean we're pretty close to DC so we're very supportive and have a close relationship to BLMDC and BY100 DC and the other folks that are working in the city. I haven't gone personally to these other cities but you know, Organizing Black has been called to support all across the country, like Ferguson or Charlotte when they had their uprising, Boston. And so we kind of get around. I have a full-time job that’s not organizing so I don’t have the freedom to travel when stuff pops up. I'm the staff photographer at Goucher College – doing photography full time.

Me: How does your identity play a role in how active you are in social justice and white supremacy?

Rob: I'm Black so I mean I would say that if I weren't Black, I wouldn’t care as much because it is not immediately affecting me. As a Black person in America I feel the wrath and violence of white supremacy every day to continue feeling that. So that’s why I do the work. And I also want better for future generations for folks that look like me.

Me: Yeah and that goes on to my next questions which you kind of answered of how it feels to be a Black man in America with everything that’s going on, and like I'm sure that fuels your artwork and what not rather than suppress it?

Rob: yeah I think the first portraits that I did were inspired by the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013, which was kind of when the Black Lives Matter and Movement for Black Lives started as well. The current movement started in 2013 and after the Trayvon Martin murder, I started making portraits with Black men in hoodies that were in profile. So literally the profile of their body and face. When you are wearing a hoodie and have a profile, it’s a very obscure perspective. He was shot by, not a sworn officer, he was a renta-cop -- somebody who's doing security and has a gun. But yeah, it was very traumatic for all people but especially Black men in that moment, because he was very innocent. Like he went to the store, grabbed some snacks, and then walked down the street and was basically hunted by this guy. And so yeah, I made some portraits after that, oriented around Black men being profiles, and I made those for a while. And then immediately after, or like a year later, is when I started getting politically active, learning about all the shit and the language and the isms. And after I started learning the basics, I started knowing it I was kinda like, now I have to do something about it, I can't know and not do anything. I started showing up to every protest I could possibly find and whenever I did, I would bring my camera and take pictures as well. I started doing this in 2014/2015.

Me: How has your journey been as an activist and what set you that activist path? what do you feel like your work has done?

Rob: I started because I was working at Goucher and students were rightfully outraged after Mike Brown was murdered in St Louis, and they wanted to do something on campus, and they started planning these protests. They were met with white bullshit and they felt very hurt by their classmates, faculty, staff, and the institution, so they started rallying around their experiences at Goucher and it became -- instead of this abstract separate protest around someone hundred miles away -- it became about their Blackness and their experiences on campus. So I was inspired by student organizing first and foremost to learn more and be a better mentor and advocate for these students at this predominately white campus that I worked at.

So that’s what started everything I guess, and then after I committed myself by joining a racial justice workshop I felt like the blinders had been removed and I was like, oh shit this is really fucked up. It's everywhere and now I can't unsee it, I see it everywhere and now I have to do something.

And as I deepened myself into the work I realized that it's not just a cute cool thing to do, it's actually a legacy of struggle that folks have passed down for generations, and there is tradition in how it's done. And so you know I've been taught by folks that were taught by our SNCC ancestors. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from the 60s -- if you're not familiar with SNCC, was one of the more radical arms of the Civil Rights Movement, and college students basically went down to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia etc. and were registering folks to vote in a very harsh climate where they were met with death sometimes, death threats, constant surveillance and harassment. And they organized to get folks the ability to vote. Because of their work, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, and a lot of lessons were learned and passed down consequently to the future generations.

So at this point, after about 5 years of doing work, I'm realizing that this is a lifelong commitment. There's no end to it, and it’s a labor of love. You do it because you love yourself first and foremost, but also because you love Black people as a whole and that’s what keeps you going. And even when you feel like shit -- well first of all, I could be doing anything else with my time, right, I could be making a lot more money, like a lot, I could be very successful in any other field -- but this is the work that I want to do, this is the work that needs to be done. So I'm committed to doing that and I feel like I'm growing. After 5 years I'm more experienced than most folks that I encounter and my role now is really bringing younger folks in and guiding them and passing down the lessons that were passed down to me, and also starting to architect things like leading campaigns, planning and executing things, but also how do we steer the ship of where I want to go. So over the next 5 to 10 years I see myself deepening in a leadership role and also within my art making and exhibiting shows both regionally and nationally. These are the goals. This is what I’m working towards.

Me: That’s awesome. I feel like you should be so proud of yourself. I feel like there's a lot of people that probably want to do it, but obviously they aren't doing it, so I feel like you should be really proud of yourself for actually sticking with it, and like you said you could be so much more successful but you really believe in this and I’m sure you are opening eyes to so many people, like my eyes have already been opened in this short conversation. So I'm sure you are inspiring a lot of people.

So with BLM have there been any changes, how has your role changed, has your artwork changed since everything has happened in the last few months?

Rob: No, it hasn’t changed at all, if anything it's been more visible in the sense that more people are following me on Instagram, more people are interested in showing my work and in galleries and stuff, but I, I'm not a fool. That is not representative of the worth of my work. I've been making the work for years without folks even really knowing or seeing it. People feel pressured to support Black artists right now, it's en vogue to show Black artists. Literally, our work is being valued more now, so like it's an investment opportunity, so people want to buy it. And it’s all BS in the sense that it's capitalism and dictated by the open market of the art world, which can't really be separated from capitalism. And so even when Black artists are talking about Black issues, and they are trying to bring more visibility to racism and white supremacy, patriarchy, people want to buy it, show it, and as soon as it's not an issue anymore, or at least in the news cycle, that attention will fall away. But I'm not getting super hopeful or excited, I just keep doing the work in the same way we did it years ago, and the same way you'll do it in 2-3 years in the future and stay focused on my long term goals. That’s what's keeping me moving. I wouldn’t say the work is changing -- like the moment hasn’t necessary required the work to change, it’s the same work that needed to be done before the uprising of the 2020.

Me: I haven't really thought about how you said people feel pressured to support, but I mean you are right, I said it to, it is BS and I feel like it's frustrating -- like why did all of this have to happen for people to feel pressured for wanting to support Black artists artwork?

I am really curious because you had this quote on your website and I was wondering if you had a story for it. “Peace to you, if you are willing to fight for it.” I was wondering if you had a story or any reasoning?

Rob: Yes -- make sure you quote chairman Fred Hampton for that quote and if you don’t know who chairman Fred Hampton is you should definitely look him up. He was murdered at 21 years old by Chicago police and the FBI. He was a revolutionary socialist, a Black Panther Party officer, he was the chair of the chapter in Chicago. And at 21 years old he was murdered by the state. So it's just a reminder that when you are doing the work, that you are actually threatening the system. That threat won't be taken lightly, but it's also a reminder that real revolutionary change needs to happen and people need to be willing to do that work. So if you want peace, you have to fight for it. It's a pretty straight forward quote but maybe the backstory of who it comes from makes a little more sense.

A little more about Fred Hampton - he was such a threat because he was able to build unity between the white working class and the Black working class. You know, the way racism and white supremacy works in America is to drive a wedge between the elite class and the working class, so folks are more focused on keeping Black people down, keeping Mexicans out of the country or whatever. He got them focused on the fact that people who are billionaires and uber millionaires are robbing them blind, right, like our minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour in 2020. So you know, Fred Hampton was very clear that to win, we needed to organize and galvanize solidarity between the white working class and Black revolutionary struggles. So he was really all about revolutionary struggle and as a result he was targeted and murdered by the state. So I love that quote because of who it comes from, what it meant to him, and what should mean to us.

Me: Well you really did open my eyes, there were so many points that I can’t wait to go back and listen to it all again. That was awesome I’m really happy I got the chance to meet with you over Zoom and I really appreciate your time.

Rob: Definitely, thanks for taking the time.