I would have to say that the inspiration behind 'Black Suffering, Black Excellence - Black Existence' came from Kwame Brathwaite's photograph, 'Untitled (Garvey Day Dee Dee in Car) (1965) that I stumbled upon sometime in May. I love this photograph for its dynamism and stillness, and I immediately knew that I wanted to write something centered around it. Identity and representation are prominent themes that I am always trying to explore in my writing, and I felt the need to write something that spoke to the limiting ways that Black people around the world have been represented and made to see themselves through a dichotomy of suffering or excellence that deliberately omits from view the in-between, the plurality of Black existence. This manifested in the form of a photo essay that brought a number of Black photographers into conversation with each other and whose work subverts these dominant modes of representation, conveying the multiplicity of Black existence in 'lonesome, longing, laughter, light, living.