In order to pay tribute to Zora Neale Hurston, during the fall 2023 semester, Lincoln University will premier documentary photographer Sasha Phyars-Burgess’ exhibit, “Everything Nice,” in the Langston Hughes Memorial Library at Lincoln University. Sasha Phyars’ project is, in terms of artistic tradition, on parallel with Zora Neale Hurston’s legacy. More specifically, both women are committed to documenting the Black tradition by traveling to specific communities throughout the American South and the Caribbean. Both artists emphasize, through example, highlight how mobility and agency are to the Black tradition.
Sasha Phyars-Burgess was born in Brooklyn, New York to Trinidadian parents and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She received a BA in photography from Bard College and an MFA from Cornell University. Her photographs employ a documentary style approach in order to view the domestic, the unsupervised, and the ordinary in an effort to explore the varied social, economic, and political realities of the African diaspora. She is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient.
