Organizer

Laylah Amatullah Barrayn is a photographer, curator, and writer whose work explores Black diasporic communities, cultures, and memory across the African diaspora. Born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, with familial roots in South Carolina, she has worked as a photographer for more than 25 years.

Barrayn is the author of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora and We Are Present: 2020 in Portraits, with a third book on Black photographers forthcoming. Her photography and writing have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC, and The Guardian, as well as in books including Reflections in Black: A Reframing, Photography: A Feminist History, and Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, among other titles. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Brighton Photo Biennial (UK), the Bamako Encounters African Photography Biennial, MoMA PS1, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, among others.

She teaches photography at Rutgers University–Newark and at the International Center of Photography, and is a graduate of New York University.