Justin Maxon & Dr. H. “Herukhuti” Sharif Williams

Chester: Staring Down the White Gaze is a collaborative project that examines how whiteness operates within American visual culture. Through an interrogation of image-making, authorship, and the politics of the gaze, the project investigates how visual practices have historically constructed and sustained racial hierarchies.

Developed in collaboration between scholar Dr. H. “Herukhuti” Sharif Williams and photographer Justin Maxon, the work stages a reflexive dialogue that exposes how white supremacy is reproduced and naturalized through photographic representation. By inverting the gaze and turning it back toward whiteness itself, the project renders visible the cultural and aesthetic mechanisms of racial hegemony.

Chester: Staring Down the White Gaze brings together contributions from artists in Chester, Pennsylvania—Desire Grover, Wydeen Ringgold, Leon Paterson, and Jonathan King—whose practices reframe dominant visual narratives of the city. Together, the project asks viewers to consider how both the maker and the viewer are implicated in systems of anti-Blackness, and how images shape what becomes legible and culturally authoritative.