In front of an intimate group seated in Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, renowned photographer Tyler Mitchell sat down with author and scholar Imani Perry for a candid conversation about his work and newest exhibit, Idyllic Space.
In his conversation, Mitchell stated his goal of the exhibit was to center the place where he’s from and “showcase all of the dynamics of the south, and our relationships to land and landscapes. Those profound, thorny, difficult and sometimes violent histories. In spite of those things there’s transcendence, and the capacity for a lot of wonderful and cultural survival.”
Upon walking into the exhibit, you’re hit with a sense of warmth — it feels like walking into a family members home. Images are mounted (in handmade frames) like family photos of decades past, and printed on fabric and strung along clothes lines. It feels familiar, and familial — a homecoming of the best kind.
Of his imagery in Idyllic Space, Mitchell stated “I aim to visualize what a Black utopia looks like or could look like. People say utopia is never achievable, but I love photography’s possibility of allowing me to dream and make that dream become very real.” This theme is reflected in images like Albany, Georgia which features a black family engaged in activities that reflect Mitchell’s concept of Black utopia.
About his image titled Georgia Hillside (Redlining), Mitchell stated “I was having visions of home. I’d been in New York for a lot of the Covid lockdown. I hadn’t been home to Atlanta in maybe over a year. I hadn’t seen family, and I was having visions of wanting to see collectivity within the landscape of Georgia. Plurality, multiple experiences happening in one image. Images of artistic production, leisure, rest, adventure, conversation and embrace. And for the landscape to reflect, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes subtly but sometimes overtly, the history [of redlining].”
The exhibit is among a long list of Mitchell’s accolades. The photographer, who typically centers his work around fashion and black determination and expression, has been a staple in the fashion photography community for years. In his conversation with Perry, Mitchell got candid about being in the fashion photography world and how it informed his work in Idyllic Space. He stated “[dress] is something I leave a little ambiguous. The experience I have as a photographer that works in fashion, having that obsessive eye for clothes — as a tool that we all employ to convey, communicate and express ideas about who we are — that plays a role in all of this portraiture.”
Arguably, Mitchell’s most record-breaking accomplishments are within the world of fashion. Mitchell was the first black photographer to shoot a cover of Vogue — and of Beyonce, no less. No stranger to firsts, Tyler Mitchell also notably shot Harry Styles for the December 2020 issue of Vogue, the first American Vogue issue to feature a man on its cover solo. And if those firsts weren’t enough for the accomplished photographer, Mitchell then went on to shoot Vogue’s February 2021 cover of Madame Vice President Kamala Harris as well.
As for what comes next, Mitchell hopes for more exhibits in the future. But in the immediate, the photographer left his talk at the High in Atlanta to attend the remainder of Paris Fashion Week.
Idyllic Space is open at the High Museum of Art now until December 1st.
