The heir of the great abolitionist leader who rebels against the narrative of slavery: "The supreme ideal of the white man is only a myth."

The photography of Ayana V. Jackson (New Jersey, 1977) explores the roots of the family tree that makes up her biological and racial family. Over the past 20 years, the photographer's work has delved into the diaspora to which, following the colonial era, those with roots in the African continent have been forced. To first strip it of all its connotations and, later, find herself within them.

Because that's the story of her family. Her paternal lineage descends from William Still, one of the leaders of the slavery abolition movement and considered the father of the Underground Railroad , the secret network woven to allow Black slaves to flee the southern states of the United States to the northern part of the country, where the practice was prohibited, or to Canada. Her grandfather was born in that southern region under the Jim Crow laws, suffered under apartheid, and ended up as a school principal in a community in New Jersey. Her father, a member of the Black Power movement in the 1950s, was born there, and the artist grew up there, whose education has always been linked to the Black American community. She pursued her higher education at Spelman College, the art school for Black women in Atlanta.

“ I am Black, from the United States, and a descendant of slavery. All of those identities are present in my project . I am very lucky to have been born in this era, to have this family, and to be middle class. But just because this is my life doesn’t mean there aren’t problems in terms of education and opportunities for our community,” begins Ayana V. Jackson, who has just arrived in Madrid to exhibit her photographic work solo in Europe for the first time. Nosce Te Ipsum: Membrum Fantasma is the exhibition that serves as the opening of the current edition of the PHotoEspaña festival . It is also a exploration of the figure of Afro-Latin women in societies like Mexico and a revisiting of the image of Black women in the colonial archive.

Precisely that first phrase, Nosce Te Ipsum — Know Thyself —is displayed on the entrance frontispiece of the National Museum of Anthropology, which is hosting the exhibition until August 31 and celebrating its 150th anniversary in the midst of the decolonization process. In fact, this space is one of the first in the country to undergo the revision of its collection promoted by the Ministry of Culture . And Ayana V. Jackson delves into this area.

"I don't want to break the narrative of slavery, but we have to investigate and understand it. Because slavery was an economic and political system that, through free labor, enabled several centuries of wealth for the developed world," the artist explains. She continues: " When we understand that much of Europe's wealth comes from the colonial experiment and that of the United States from slavery, we will have a more honest view of our world ."

Why do you consider this decolonization process important?

Racism has a birth date, and the supreme ideal of the white man is merely a myth because race is a construct. If we can agree on this, we can begin to understand why it is now being reinforced. Decolonization is nothing more than an act of interrupting and emasculating those mythological ideas because once you accept it, you can break away from those bestial ideas of division. It is understanding that half of the gold Europe accumulated came from Africa and half of the silver came from Mexico. And I don't even know if that can be returned, but it must be recognized as part of the interconnectedness between a country and its former colonies.

There are historians, at least in Spain, who argue that this process is incorrect because it represents revisionism and an inadequate view of the past.

But it's a way to heal, and I think we have to do it because we can't continue sowing seeds of hatred. There are still people in our society who argue that there are differences between people based on whether they are white or black. That's why it's important for Spain to recognize its own history, to understand itself and its relationship with the transatlantic slave trade. Because if it doesn't understand that, it won't understand a Costa Rican, a Venezuelan, a Mexican... who are not the other, they are part of their community.

This conversation comes just days after Donald Trump announced he would reinstate Columbus Day in the United States . A holiday that was never retired but was shared with Indigenous Peoples' Day on October 12 and which the current president attributes to the woke movement. " We are suffering from ignorance at the highest levels on the part of governments around the world. And people's inability to look at the relationship between the past and the present has brought us here," explains the photographer, who avoids mentioning the Republican leader in each of her references. "Right now, there is a culture of division in many countries with more conservative governments. I am not a politician, and I don't think those governments are necessarily sowing seeds of hatred, but they are unaware of their actions. There is a global economic concern, but to say it's the fault of immigration, Black people, or foreigners. And that these are a problem is to simplify everything."

There, the photographer embarks on a comparison between today's society and that of the colonial era. " I don't know if we're that different from those of the colonial era. We still live in a society that requires free labor, or at least low-cost labor, because otherwise, progress becomes impossible ." Because, according to Ayana V. Jackson, "that longing for free labor still persists," to the point that "we're willing to sacrifice even our humanity to achieve it." "This rapid progress is exploitative, and until we change it, we'll remain in the past."

It is in this context that the discourse of Ayana V. Jackson's photography is enhanced and reaches the roots of the racial family tree that unites her with people of African descent. In fact, in one of the exhibition spaces, along these lines, the song "Angelitos negros" (Black Angels), popularized by Antonio Machín, can be heard in the version by African-American Roberta Flack, which addresses none other than the lack of representation of the black race in religious imagery. " We black people sometimes see ourselves outside the main body of the human being and the idea of ​​humanity . My family are the descendants of slavery who were disconnected from our main body, which is Africa."

And, from there, prospecting.