Carolyn Cooper | Peter Ferguson opened up windows to ourselves

In May 2007, at the launch of Changemakers: 101 Portraits Of Men In Jamaica, Peter Ferguson signed my book with these words: ‘A Little History’. In his introductory essay, he elaborated: “There is a need for documenting and celebrating, before our own history is rewritten by foreigners, packaged and sold back to us.” The photographer as artivist knew that cultural activism was essential if we were to see ourselves as we are, not as others would define us.

Peter first acknowledged his parents, Vincent and Ena. Then, he highlighted the way in which media images can distort our sense of self: “Elvis gyrated, girls went wild, and young boys like myself became confused and scarred by Hollywood’s notions of beauty, both female and male.” These imported images still have the power to harm us, if we allow them.

Growing up in Jamaica in the ’50s, I learned that I was supposed to be ugly. Melanin marked me as undesirable; my natural hair was bad; my nose and lips were too broad and my high-riding ‘bunda’ was just too assertive. When I look at photographs of myself from those days, I see a bright-eyed child with a confident smile. It was such a crime that so many little black girls were not taught to appreciate our beauty. Sadly, not much has changed.

As a teenager, I realised that the young men I found attractive did not return the compliment. They, too, had been fed negative images about themselves. Their mission was to pursue a light-skinned girl who could improve their stock. No one who looked like them could possibly be desirable. One of my friends confessed that when he was in high school he didn’t even see black girls. We were completely out of the picture.

This is the painful history that Ferguson confronted with such style and passion in his arresting body of work. He did not conceive his carefully crafted portraits in Changemakers as ‘pretty pictures’. Instead, he displayed “thoughtful, thought-provoking, unconventional views of people we thought we knew because we see and read about most of them so often”. One of the unexpected images is of Edward Seaga. In his essay, ‘Peter Ferguson: Art and Artifice’, David Boxer wickedly asks, “Does the set piece of the usually stern shepherd of his people benignly smiling negate the standard Seaga iconography? No, but it is possibly the most comfortable image of the man I have ever seen.” And, perhaps, the most comforting!

Peter knew that his decision to publish 101 portraits of men could be seen as controversial: “This book is by no means meant to be a catalyst for raising gender issues; given the current world climate, however, talk is probably inevitable.” In dread 2020, almost a decade and a half later, Ferguson published the companion volume, 101 Portraits of Female Changemakers, silencing any talk of exclusion. But there is a remarkable difference between the photographs.

In her essay, ‘On Both Sides Of the Camera’, independent curator Veerle Poupeye observes that, “The men were photographed in their own environment and one of the striking, shared features of the male portraits was the subjects’ comfortable, self-defining ‘ownership’ of their surroundings.” I noticed that Reneto Adams, for example, commandingly posed, sitting in a chair, with his feet cocked up on a window. Pure macho bravado!

By contrast, the women were photographed in the controlled environment of the artist’s studio. As Veerle perceptively asserts, “In the female portraits, the focus is almost exclusively on the human figure and its expressive potential, and particularly of the face and the hands, and less on the social identity and status of the sitters.” A classic example is the breathtaking profile of Peter’s former teacher, Daphne Grant. She’s a classic beauty, quietly looking into the distance, with her glasses in her right hand.

RESTORING BEAUTY AND POWER

In the ‘Introduction’ to his portraits of the women, Ferguson declared, “I have tried to open up windows to ourselves (men and women) and to the possibilities of what we as responsible citizens in society can become.” He certainly succeeded. For over two decades, Peter regularly photographed me. It wasn’t vanity. Peter artfully made a political statement about the black female body. He restored the beauty and power that a racist society had stolen from so many of us.

My very first sitting was at his studio on Old Hope Road, which was ‘all wrapped up’ with the elegant gift shop of his beloved wife Paula, the perfect combination of beauty and brains. Ferguson gave precise directions: “Head up a little, down a little, to the side, turn your body to left, to the right, hold it, don’t move, don’t move!” He was seeing all of the vitality that was missing from my static reflection in a judgemental mirror.

Ferguson, ever philosophical, made a sobering admission in the introduction to his portraits of the men: “After almost 45 years of Jamaica’s independence, with the world in a mess, I have suddenly realised that I am close to the end of my three score and 10. I find myself obsessed with my own mortality, and with the fragility of the lives of today’s men and women. I wonder at our ability as human beings to survive in the way that we once thought was right for us.”

Two Thursdays ago, Ferguson lost his five-year battle with cancer. He was only 66. Paula affirms that, “Peter escaped the ravages of cancer and left here as himself, faculties intact.” I am so happy he lived to celebrate the publication of his portraits of the women. As Peter said of the earlier book, “One of the greatest joys is to be able to conceptualise, implement and see a project like this to fruition no matter the cost to one’s well-being; to finally bring this work to a close for my next beginning.” A perfect epitaph!

n Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.