L. Kasimu Harris
L. Kasimu Harris (b. 1978) is a New Orleans-based writer and photographer who aims to tell stories of underrepresented communities in New Orleans and beyond. His work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including the New Orleans Museum of Art’s 2018 group exhibition, Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories and his 2020 solo exhibition, Vanishing Black Bars & Lounges: Photographs by L. Kasimu Harris at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh. He was also among 60 nationwide artists selected for the State of the Art 2020 exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. Harris is also one of 13 artists tapped for MoMA’s New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging, and five of his photos were acquired by the museum for their permanent collection.
He has penned food columns for the Bitter Southerner, and his essay, The Dismantling of Southern Photography, was recently published in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s exhibition catalog for New Southern Photography. He also has images in several publications, including Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, by Shantrelle P. Lewis by Aperture, and his writing and photographs were featured in a February 2020 The New York Times article, “A Shot Before Last Call: Capturing New Orleans’s Vanishing Black Bars.”
Harris earned a BBA in Entrepreneurship from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in Journalism from the University of Mississippi. He is on the Board of Trustees at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, as well as the Board of Directors of the New Orleans Photo Alliance and is a member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance and the Antenna Gallery Collective. Some of Harris’s awards include the 2022 Documentary Photographer of the Year by Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities, one of eight “Louisianians of the Year” for 2017 by Louisiana Life magazine, and three artists residencies (2018, 2022, 2025). Most recently, Harris was the still photographer for Nickel Boys, the Oscar-nominated movie directed by RaMell Ross and based on the Colson Whitehead novel.