Andrea Morales: Roll Down Like Water

The first book on Peruvian-American artist Andrea Morales, whose photographs honor her community and their activism in Memphis and the surrounding region.

This vibrant catalog showcases a decade’s work by Peruvian-American photographer Andrea Morales (b. 1984), whose camera captures community life and activism in the American South, particularly in her home city of Memphis, Tennessee. It accompanies her first major exhibition at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, represents the first scholarly publication on her work, and the first major museum exhibition dedicated to movement journalism.

Memphis has long been a place bubbling with social movements. Roll Down Like Water--a nod to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s iconic last speech in the city--shows Morales’s incredible ability to engage with her subjects. From intimate portraits and records of daily life to the documentation of social and environmental movements with local and national resonance, her photography builds a passionate and tender portrait of this unique part of the South.

Morales centers her practice on building long-term relationships with the communities she photographs and views this relationship as one of collaboration rather than detached observation. Her approach is informed by movement journalism, which recognizes that journalism, like the camera, is not totally objective. By establishing a human connection between chronicler and people and rooting it in an ethical and rigorous framework, Morales’s community-driven visual storytelling reaches beyond historical injustice to capture the liveliness and joy of the communities she photographs.

For Memphis and Morales, King’s words loom large. Echoing his description of collective liberation as ＂an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny,＂ Morales’s captivating images of the South chart new, sustainable paths in photojournalism, while reflecting upon identity, community, and the power of storytelling.

Rosamund Garrett is chief curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, where she also serves as the curator of European and decorative arts. Andrea Morales is a documentary photographer and photojournalist. John Edwin Mason is associate professor at the University of Virginia, where he teaches African history and the history of photography.