Charles Daniel (“Danny”) Dawson is a photographer, curator, arts administrator, consultant, filmmaker, and scholar based in New York City. Dawson has exhibited work in over 35 shows and is an early member of the Kamoinge Workshop, an African American photography collective based in Harlem, New York. Dawson has served as Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center, the Program Manager at the American Museum of Natural History, the Curator of Photography, Film and Video at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Curatorial Consultant and Director of Education at the Museum for African Art. Dawson has also given lectures at Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of California-Berkeley, the New School for Social Research, the Federal University of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil, among many others. Additionally, he has taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, New York University and Yale University.

Charis Morgan of PCPP sat down with Dawson to discuss his earliest days in the darkroom at age 14, his experience working as the archivist for James Van Der Zee’s collection, the influence of African and Afro-American spirituality on his photography, and much more. Check out the full interview as well as a selection of Dawson’s photographs below!