This photograph is the melding of strength and sorrow. Making clear the tension between youth and history in today’s modern age. My series Historical Fiction was about making images that go beyond me and beyond the photograph, images that make a statement. Six years ago I took an image entitled “Lynching” of a black man hanging a kkk member. At the time I had no idea how impactful the image would be. Six years later we seem to be in the very same place with a new generation of eyes watching and longing for change. “The Kid” was shot in the exact same location as the “Lynching” photograph. Both capturing the same feel though taken years apart they seemingly go together as a diptych separated only by time. This is an important piece to me as we are called to reconnect to our humanity we must all connect to our innocence and find the kid inside of ourselves. Revisiting this world in our current times was painful and beautiful all at once just like the photograph. “The Kid” was beautifully played by Malik and I want to thank him and his family for trusting in my image and exhibiting such strength and vulnerability.

Historical Fiction features Tyler Shields’ powerful interpretations of iconic moments and individual reactions to 1960s American political and pop culture history. Events including the first men on the moon, the disbanding of The Beatles, the Golden Age of air travel, racial violence, and the deaths of James Dean, John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marilyn Monroe have all wreaked havoc on the American psyche, and Tyler Shields presents it in ways that have never been seen before. “I started thinking about these moments that every generation remembers,” Shields said. “Our generation remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when 9/11 happened, but I didn’t want to do something so modern.” Soon he realized that the same applied for the moment JFK was killed, Marilyn Monroe died, or Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. So, he tracked down artifacts (JFK’s toe tag, Marilyn Monroe’s Pill Bottles and PanAm Plane), vintage clothing and actual newspapers to photograph staged reactions to these now-historical events.

“I’ve always loved the idea of seeing the opposite,” says the American photographer Tyler Shields said. “Cops who are beating people up or white people who are hanging black people, what would they think if it was the other way around?” In Tyler Shields’ photographs, Lynching and American Flag, the traditional victim of violent race-related injustice turns aggressor. Images shocking even by today’s standards: after all, the despicably archaic act of lynching still permeates today’s society. “Right now we are going through a real racial issue in our country,” says Tyler Shields “And, to me, these things that happened in the 20s and 30s, they’re just as poignant today as they were back then.” Shields, who was curious as to how the role reversal would look and the emotional reaction it would evoke in the viewer.