Killing the Negative: A Conversation in Art and Verse

While looking through materials on Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects, visual artist Joel Daniel Phillips stumbled upon an image—a 1936 photograph by Walker Evans with a gaping black hole in the center.

This chance discovery of a “killed negative” led Phillips and poet Quraysh Ali Lansana into a collaborative project that explores complex intersections of representation, truth, and power—crucial concepts that are at the center of our contemporary society.