The MTSU Photo Society sponsored a panel on Feb. 3 for visiting artist Rahim Fortune, a photographer involved in capturing the voices of the American South.
Originally born in Texas, Fortune moved to the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma at a younger age. The artist knowledgeable the viewers of his household’s background, noting that, upon arriving in Oklahoma after surviving the Trail of Tears, they got 1,500 acres of allotted land. During the panel, Fortune defined how his childhood and his Chickasaw heritage initially impressed him to turn into a photographer.
“My first project was about Oklahoma. My mother passed away in 2007, and in a lot of Native territories, the suicide rate is twice the national average.” Fortune stated. “It’s a very pervasive issue, [so] I lost my mother when I was in eighth grade to suicide.”
After his mom’s passing, Fortune moved again to Texas together with his sister, who was the one different one who shared his lived expertise. Fortune later developed an curiosity in American historical past that informs his work at this time.
“I became almost obsessed with history… I would find myself almost obsessively looking at images, going onto online archives and searching for any keyword about this place, for just something tangible to understand what I had lived through,” the artist stated.
In 2016, Fortune travelled to New York to check sociology. While there, the works of previous photographers reminded him of his unique dwelling in Oklahoma. Although his household now not has land there, this pushed him to return to reconnect together with his previous.
“I have no ties [to Oklahoma] outside of the grave markers of a few loved ones to lay claim to,” Fortune stated.
In 2018, his father was recognized with ALS, a illness with no identified trigger and no identified treatment. For the following two years, he travelled between New York and Texas to go to together with his father. During this time, Fortune took images impressed by his life together with his household in Texas.
His earliest work showcases images of the city he grew up in. He took images of its folks, animals and home areas. Consisting of 58 images, Fortune printed his first e-book in 2020, titled “I Can’t Stand To See You Cry.”
“Now that it’s been about five years since this book came out, I’m happy to still be able to stand by this work and it not be something that was reactionary or only of a particular moment,” Fortune stated. “I often think that within photography, there’s only three elements that are working there and that’s light, memory, and time passed.”
In 2025, Fortune printed his second e-book, “Hardtack.” The e-book focuses on the wealthy lives of different communities within the American South, in addition to on concepts of inheritance inside households. The photographer contains footage of city occasions intermixed with images of each day life and different small moments that may very well be captured.
“Many things in the South are not one-dimensional and require a great deal of context and understanding. If you spend any time down here, things are not always as they should be or how they should seem on the surface. The South is so full of baggage, of photographic baggage,” stated Fortune.
Representing marginalized teams within the South has turn into an intrinsic a part of Fortune’s work. The photographer stated he hopes to shine a candid gentle on the American South.
“There’s been such a massive contribution from Black and Native people to this country’s identities. I mean, at times quite literally becoming mascots for the country’s ideas around freedom and determination,” Fortune stated.
Fortune’s third e-book is at present within the works and extra info on him and his artwork will be discovered on Instagram.
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