Featured Faculty
Joshua Rashaad McFadden
College of Art and Design
Joshua Rashaad McFadden is an American visual artist whose primary medium is photography. McFadden explores the use of archival material within his work and is known for his portraiture. He also conceptually investigates themes related to identity, masculinity, history, race, and sexuality. In November of 2021, McFadden’s first solo museum exhibition opened at the George Eastman Museum, titled, “Joshua Rashaad McFadden: I Believe I'll Run On.”
The exhibition is an early-career retrospective of the Rochester-based artist’s work in which he critically examines the racism and anti-Black violence that Black Americans have experienced from slavery to the present. The exhibition focuses on seven series: Selfhood, Come to Selfhood, Evidence, Unrest in America, After Selma, A Lynching’s Long Shadow, and Love Without Justice. As a whole, the exhibition demonstrates his mastery of a wide range of photographic genres—social documentary, reportage, portraiture, and fine art. In McFadden’s most personal project to date, the series, Love Without Justice examines his family photo archive, including images of domestic spaces which draw from his memory, sparked by the passing of his grandmother and a collection of intimate self-portraits.
Included in the exhibition are images of unrest from 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Atlanta, Georgia and Rochester, NY as community members reacted to the killings of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and Daniel Prude, respectively. In April of 2021, McFadden continued that work in Minneapolis, documenting the community response to the killing of George Floyd as police officer Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict was announced.
During the trial of Derek Chauvin, another black man, Daunte Wright, was shot and killed in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota and the following day, McFadden was in the streets with demonstrators to photograph the protests that unfolded. His work was recognized by Time Magazine and the New York Times in their top photos of 2021.
In addition to his documentary reportage, McFadden has made time to pursue several long-term projects, one of which is supported by a National Geographic/For Freedoms Grant awarded to him in 2020.
Joshua Rashaad McFadden
Assistant Professor
School of Photographic Arts and Sciences