Zora J. Murff: Documenting the Shadow Empire

Zora J Murff is an artist and educator whose work critically examines systemic oppression and the cultural, historical, and personal impact of anti-Blackness. Through his roles as a photographer, professor, organizer, and former social worker, he has consistently worked to carve out spaces of Black affirmation and resistance, intentionally using methods of self- and collective-defense, alongside a lifelong habit of never backing down.

In fall 2023, Murff gave a lecture at Georgia State University (GSU) on antiracist pedagogy. He drew parallels between his own abolitionist teaching praxis to specific Black Panther Party strategies. He also discussed how he survives as a Black artist and how he helps his students survive within predominantly White institutions (PWIs) by building an island for his students, by using self-evaluation instead of hierarchical grading, and by focusing on relationships and radical transparency.

This fall, I’m teaching my first college course at GSU, which builds upon the advice Murff shared a year earlier, including the use of self-evaluation and rhizomatic learning structures. This conversation is likewise geared toward the potential ripple effects of sharing practical resistance tools, how to work with ethical clarity within academia and the art world, and how to build spaces for community support.

Murff’s newest exhibition, The Devil Hiding in Plain Sight, runs August 19–November 1, 2024, at the University of Dayton Roger Glass Center for the Arts Gallery in Dayton, OH. The exhibition explores the persistent global conspiracy around anti-Black genocide through a series of collages that incorporate archival materials from history, personal artifacts and photography, and elements of contemporary visual culture, inviting viewers to engage in unlearning, uncovering, and dismantling.

Bird Harris: The Devil Hiding in Plain Sight [greets visitors] with a photograph of a young man that you took almost a decade ago, when you were a social worker supporting teenagers on probation. Why did you decide to open the exhibition with that photograph?

Zora Murff: In the broadest sense, I would say the show is about imperialism, colonialism—how it’s all in our faces, every day. There are different ways of seeing it, different ways of experiencing it. There are a couple specific reasons for the show opening with that photograph. The first is to think about the daily experience of state-sanctioned violence.

[Regarding] the young man in that photograph, the police showed up at his house to question him about a bike that was stolen. His sister started to argue with the police officer basically saying, “Where’s your proof? You don’t have a right to be here. You don’t have a right to question this minor. Our mom’s not home.”

And so, as his sister is standing up for him, he starts filming on his phone, and then the police officer arrests him and takes him to the detention center. His mom and I, and his probation officer, had to do a lot of work to get him out. At that time, I was also making the work Corrections (2013–2015) and I asked him afterwards if we could make a portrait to re-create that moment when he used his phone as a source of agency, of witnessing, and … it ultimately [landed] him in the back of a cop car and transported [him] to the detention facility. So, it’s thinking about one’s power inside of the system, in one way.

The second reason is the cell phone itself. The complication with this device of agency is how its wrapped up in the daily oppression of people in Africa who are mining these minerals, [with] the countries that are exploited by states and corporations to mine these conflict minerals.

To me, this photograph is like a preface of presenting the complications, I guess: What power do we have? Where does power come from?

BH: Yeah, it’s a powerful image that mirrors the purpose of the exhibition in a way. I think it sets the stage for how you document the links between agency and complicity throughout the show, like in the collage on Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, For I prefer to die with my head held high (do not weep for me, but fight in my stead) (2024). Can you talk about what evidence you chose to include in that piece?

ZM: There’s a lot of evidence. The title is pulled from Patrice Lumumba’s last letter to his wife. And those were his last words to her. The part that I’ve added on, “but fight in my stead”—I think it’s just, like, don’t waste time and energy mourning me. We have more important things to focus on. We have to keep fighting.

This is a really layered and complicated history: from his assassination in 1961; the work of trying to liberate the Congo from Belgian rule; the longer story of how Belgium came to colonize the Congo and how Europe colonized Africa as a whole; that it was done over material, primarily … rubber and ivory at the start; how that was carried out under King Leopold II’s regime; how it is attached to capitalism, [and] even the invention of the pneumatic tire by J.B. Dunlop.

At the time, the Congo had one of the largest reserves of raw rubber. And Leopold understood that, as colonizers typically do when they see indigenous populations who are stewards of the earth. They don’t have a use to mine this rubber for pneumatic tires. It’s just there, it’s like this innocuous thing, right? White people come and they see, “Oh, look at all these wonderful, untapped resources. It would be great if we could just take these.” And rather than asking and building a relationship of trade that benefits the Congolese—if they were to decide to allow people to mine that resource—it becomes, “Let’s kill them, subjugate them into enslavement, make them do the work of mining the resource, and then we can just profit off of their blood and their labor.”

I would just say the work is wide-ranging. There’s a page from an encyclopedia advertising, “The Grandeur of Leopoldville.” Under Leopold’s rule, there’s this famous photograph [made] of mercenaries with the head of an African rebel on a pike, showing how they used violence and terrorism to subjugate [the Congolese]. There are allusions to other civil rights leaders or activists—humanitarian activists … Walter Rodney or Ella Baker from the American Civil Rights Movement. Players in the American government who have these ties to corporations as they’re holding office at the same time, helping influence decisions that are made in the Congo, helping conspire between the US and the Belgians to assassinate Lumumba and install a government that’s more favorable to their desires. Some things touch directly, some things don’t. And throughout the show, and within this piece, there’s allusions to what’s happening currently in Palestine [and] thinking about fascism in general.

There’s another piece in the show [with] an image of an IDF soldier, in a library, in front of a burning bookshelf—the destruction of culture. And then, underneath it, is an image of Nazis during Kristallnacht, when they were going in and looting Jewish homes and destroying their property, stealing their property, evicting people from their homes. All these stories become interconnected because we’re talking about the same thing, which is a project of imperialism, projects of settler colonialism, projects of exploitation and genocide, all of it.

BH: Even though it’s complex visually and historically, I appreciate how the two parallel narratives in your piece about Lumumba are really clear. He is front and center and has our attention with an active gesture. And then, the large image behind him is of people’s feet running from genocidal violence in Palestine, so our first connection is between these events.

And then you include smaller visual evidence that is leaving us breadcrumbs of how these events are connected, like the small American flag and the small portraits of American leaders, hinting at this shadow empire orchestrating it all.

ZM: I love that term. The shadow empire.

BH: Well, I think the way you’re placing the artifacts really nods to that, because it’s everywhere and almost undetectable at times. I also think about the process of unlearning and realizing the depth and persistent nature of US imperialism, and how this collage, for example, illustrates your research process. Would you say that your collage work ends up being a record of your learning?

ZM: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I think, for me, my goal or intention with these works in the show is for it to be an educational experience. The place that I’m showing it right now is a university gallery in Dayton, Ohio. I’ll be going out to lecture about the works and have conversations with students around these particular histories. And so, yeah, the work does chronicle my own learning, and it pieces all this information together for people to engage with and deal with. My hope is for them to engage on a level that spurs that curiosity to then dig deeper into these histories that we’re not often—if at all—taught.

BH: Right. So, considering this show within that political context and the active suppression of these narratives, do you view this work as a reaction or resistance to that, specifically?

ZM: I would say maybe it’s a resistance to the ways that we’re taught or not taught. I think that’s about all that I can offer. And then, the rest is up to whoever’s engaging with the material.

I was just on a residency, and my studio mate Camille was telling me about the concept of a feminist killjoy, and how you can walk into a conversation, and everyone’s having a great time, and then you suck the air out of the room because you bring a level of real into a moment where people are, like, “Oh, man, we don’t want to talk about that right now.”

I think, for me, it’s about holding that unpopular opinion. I’ve had experiences, especially early on, when I was in social work, where it was like, I have a responsibility to work from a place of truth for the people … I’m serving. And maybe that means having to stand up to higher-ups and say the things that a lot of people are thinking, [but] they’re just not articulating. And being that voice, it’s always been comfortable for me. It’s just the way that I think about the world and engage with the world.

People sometimes see it as a bad thing, but it’s just a way of being. As much as we don’t want to experience the discomfort of these truths of violence that have happened throughout history, they’re real, and they happened. I’m not saying that we have to think about them all the time, but we do need to think about them.

BH: Sounds like a form of intentionality and care to me. But has it felt … throughout your life, that this tendency towards challenge and critique has gotten you in trouble? You’ve also said that you decided, at some point, to just embrace politicization. Can you talk about that switch from, “Okay, I’m getting in trouble a lot. Should I be doing this?” to, “Okay, let me just embrace this way of being.”

ZM: [It] boils down to this: when I die, I want people to be able to say that I was a real one, and that those words hold up. You know what I’m saying?

I think it’s just lessons that I’ve learned. I was working with kids on probation when Michael Brown was [killed]. All the trackers got called into this meeting. Our job, on paper, is to be an intervention for these kids … we serve [in a time frame] before the police have to be called. We’re hoping that, if a kid’s wilding out, a parent will call us to de-escalate things and get the situation remediated in a way where they don’t have to have contact with police again, because that’s just going to lead to recidivism. And so, I understood this meeting to be very serious.

But during the meeting, one of my supervisors made a “hands up, don’t shoot” joke, and I was incensed. I could feel the rage inside. And my homie Patrick hits me and is looking at my hands, and I had my fists balled up. I was ready. And then, I’m looking around and nobody’s doing anything. Nobody’s saying anything. Maybe there was some nervous chuckling. Another coworker legit laughed at the joke, and I’m just, like, “Where the fuck am I right now?”

I was, like, “I don’t want to be in this space anymore. I know that for sure.” And I think that’s, like, again, I’m just a real person. I take this job seriously. I hold a level of care for these kids because I’m supposed to. I’m like a state caretaker, essentially.

BH: Yeah, and you have a high moral bar. It’s not just that you’re supposed to, because a lot of people are supposed to do a lot of stuff.

ZM: Yeah, exactly right. I think there’s a point where you have to ask yourself these difficult questions as an artist. I’ve been interested in telling these stories that aren’t often told, that are important to tell, that maybe help us dig deeper into the origins of the many forms of oppression that we suffer.

I’m good at making art, so I should use those talents to try to speak to those things. I don’t think that the work itself is going to solve a problem, but I think it can maybe help people wake up to the realities of the world. And as a teacher, I try to teach the things that we’re currently being told that we can’t teach in a lot of places. It feels important to do.

BH: The other thing your work is doing really well is honestly modeling what we can do in the absence of having been taught these histories: We simply have to learn it ourselves. So, you’re showing us, “Here’s how I learn.” You weren’t necessarily taught in school about Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, for example, so your work is demonstrating, “Here’s how I connected the dots. What do you see? What else do you want to connect the dots about?” I think transparently modeling that learning process is not something everybody feels comfortable revealing, and I think that your work really illustrates a way forward that individuals can control.

ZM: Yeah, yeah. For me, the work about Lumumba started when I was sitting on a train, going to work. I was listening to a podcast about the history of conflict minerals—specifically, cobalt in Africa and the exploitation that’s carried with it. At the same time, I was trying to send money to a loved one who’s incarcerated, and I’m thinking about enslavement and imprisonment while I’m doing that, I’m listening to this podcast, I’m on my cell phone. And it’s like I’m seeing all these fucking problems. It was so affecting that I was, like, “I need to find a way to try to articulate this idea.” So then, in the collage itself, there’s screenshots of the receipts of me sending money and other allusions to cell phones. There’s this very personal piece that goes into it, but also telling a story about society at large.

BH: Yeah, and waking up to society at large. Circling back to that habit of challenging authority and standing up against oppression—what has that looked like for you in shifting over to academia and the art world? What strategies have you found most effective for defending yourself and your students against the pathology of white supremacy, as you say?

ZM: You got to have people. You got to have other people in your corner. I think that’s one of the lessons I learned early on as a student—maybe more so in grad school, where shit happens to you. If you don’t have people, you just start to internalize the bullshit. But if you have people, and some shit happens to you, and you’re, like, “Look, homie, this just happened, doesn’t that sound fucked up,” and they’re like, “Bro, that is fucked up.” That’s validating.

I think one of the first times that happened in grad school was in my first critique. I wanted to try to make work about my dad leaving when I was a kid. And so, I’m in critique, and I’m just talking about how he left when I was a kid, and even though the pictures didn’t connect, I was trying to figure out how to work my way through this. What’s a good place to start? How do you photograph loneliness? Maybe we can have a conversation about that in this space. Right?

And the professor looks at me dead in the face and is, like, “I don’t give a shit about your father.” And I’m just like, “All right, bro. I know that. I don’t care about your family, dude, but I am in an educational space that’s supposed to be supporting what I’m doing, and then you’re telling me I’m doing it wrong. So, then, what’s the right way?”

So, you talk to your people. At the time, my studio mate, who is now my wife, helped me process through that [experience]. I guess, maybe through each other, we’re learning to understand that these systems aren’t built to support us. But I was naive to it. My cousin, who’s four years older than me, was the first person in our family to get an advanced degree. You know what I mean? These environments are foreign to me, but it was sold to me as a space where I could learn vulnerably, but then I’m being disciplined, so to speak, for engaging how I thought I was supposed to engage.

It’s taking experiences like that, understanding them for what they are—bullshit—and then making the active choice to not perpetuate that. When I engage with students and they tell me, “I want to make pictures about loneliness,” I say, “Yeah. Let’s dig into that, bro. What does that mean? What does loneliness mean to you?” And then, “Let’s have a conversation about that, in relationship to the images.” It’s a decision to not act in a harmful manner.

It’s also about deciding to stand up to those things when they happen in real time. That means that, as faculty now, I’m calling it out when it happens, knowing that [doing so is] going to be uncomfortable. A lot of people don’t like conflict, but that’s a part of life. Let’s lean into that discomfort. Let’s talk about why we think we can address students in this manner. Is that appropriate? Why do we deem that appropriate? You know what I mean? So, I think the base of that experience is just having the wherewithal to notice harm and then having the courage to put words to it in real time.

BH: And having the people to back you up when you get shaky.

ZM: Yeah. Exactly. Right.

BH: But that approach also requires you to have clarity about what you will and won’t stand for. That makes me think about how clear you are about your abolitionist practice. I was blown away, hearing how intentional you are with the strategies you use as an artist, as a teacher, as a person, and how you connect [them] directly to Black Panther strategy.

Your moral clarity comes from examples in history, and I would expect that clarity would help you stand up more quickly. Could you talk about the lessons that you’ve taken from that connection to Black Panther strategies?

ZM: I think maybe a good example is how the Panthers started policing the police. Under law, the Panthers could carry guns, and they could show up and oversee police. And the police can see, “Okay, these armed citizens are watching us. They have the ability to defend themselves. So, maybe this person that we were going to harass, we’re not going to harass because we’re outnumbered.” You know what I mean? So, I think it is just figuring out how these systems work and then trying to find ways of working in their confines. But it’s not easy. It’s really not easy.

I’ve been reading some Joy James lately, and she talks about this idea of a zone of compromise which can be applied to working and practicing as an artist and an educator. Working inside of the system, it benefits you immediately. It doesn’t really benefit a lot of other people, but you’re still able to help students understand struggle.

So, as an educator, I’ve had a lot of conversations with students [who] are maybe being harmed in the system and really [helped] them navigate through, as honestly as I can. I can tell them, yes, you can go file this complaint against this professor, but you need to have an understanding that university [human resources] is built to protect the institution, not the individuals within it. I don’t say those things to dissuade students from making that report, but I try to be transparent by saying, “Here’s what you can expect from this system.”

BH: Yeah. It sounds like systems thinking is a throughline between understanding what worked from the Panthers systems, what was effective, and then teaching students and yourself how to analyze the systems you’re currently operating in, in a similar way. And then figuring out how to move strategically and accordingly from those observations, because we don’t have time to waste.

ZM: Right. Absolutely. One thing I’ll add to that is trying to get people to really think through how things can be different, right?

BH: Right. Well, I wonder if The Photographer’s Green Book (2020) is an example of that? Could you talk about what inspired you to begin organizing for that project?

ZM: Yeah. It started during 2020, during COVID, after witnessing the [killings] of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, when all of that was going down, it just seemed like all these institutions—Magnum, the New York Times—were, like, “Okay, we have to actually give Black people space and resources and all of this stuff.” As an institution, they must have noticed this racist discrepancy before, so, [taking action] now is fucking insulting. I think the deeper, more insidious part is that when Black people are murdered by police, money starts flowing, commerce starts flowing. And that was a really hard moment to grapple with. I’m just now getting a deeper understanding of that time.

The Photographer’s Green Book started with these conversations I was having with the organization’s founder, Jabari Zuberi. That’s where the idea was rooted: two Black artists thinking about these problems.

If we know that art institutions make us feel [as if], “Man, I’m being used because of my Blackness. I’m being commodified and being tokenized.” Where else can we turn? And then, the first answer that a lot of us arrive at … in isolated places is, like, “Well, there’s nothing around, I’m never going to find these spaces,” and that’s not true. They’re out there. You just have to look for them.

So, Jay had this idea: “What if I just made a list like The Negro Motorist Green Book, this manual that can be a guide for safe travel?”

So, then, him and Sydney Ellison, and Ally Caple, and a few other people started making this resource list and interviewing Black artists through Instagram Live. It was really accessible at a time when we were all just on our screens, and it became like a Maroon camp, outside of the larger system—a place where we could celebrate and validate each other.

It grew into a publication. We did some exhibitions, and then we took a hiatus. Now, we’re slowly starting things back up again, just trying to figure out what it means in the post–2020 lockdown pandemic world, even though the pandemic is still alive and well.

But yeah, the project was so oriented toward that moment when we felt we had even less access to each other. So, how do we still find ways of sharing and supporting each other? But now that the pace of life has changed, we’re trying to figure out what it needs to be. How could it function now?

BH: I really appreciate how you consistently try to get closer to the truth in all the spaces that you’re in. How do you think we get there?

ZM: I’m just trying to be honest. I’m just going to continue to be honest about the things that I see in the world and keep talking about anti-Black oppression. That doesn’t mean I’m going to tell every story, but I think I can maybe tell important components of [them], so that I can teach other people to see it more clearly, too.

Heather Bird Harris is an artist and educator based in Atlanta. She is sometimes a curator and writer, former middle school principal, and curriculum consultant focused on anti-racist history educationin public schools throughout the South. Her practice explores the throughlines between history and ecological crises, engaging with communities, scientists, and site-specific materials to investigate possibilities for emergence.