I Am More Than Who You See was created by Lisa Abia-Smith, Director of Education and Senior Instructor faculty for PPPM, and was inspired by Cephas Williams’ 56 Black Men campaign. This project was part of the annual Community Conversations series held for University of Oregon students through the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, OR, focusing on themes of identity, misrepresentation, and the lived impact of societal assumptions.

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The exhibition documented multiple community conversations primarily with students of color, capturing their reflections on stereotyping as it intersected with race, gender identity, and sexuality. These discussions revealed the layered and often conflicting ways individuals were perceived—ways that reduced or erased the complexity of who they were in favor of culturally imposed categories and expectations.

 

Rather than constructing a singular narrative, Malik Lovette and I worked to create space for each participant to assert their own terms of visibility and self-representation. We encouraged individuals to articulate not only how they were seen but also how they wished to be understood—acknowledging that identity formation was shaped by the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, culture, and personal history. Through portrait photography, participants presented themselves not as static subjects but as multifaceted beings whose identities were in constant negotiation and development.

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Throughout the process, our team sought to reflect these authentic perspectives with care, emphasizing agency, consent, and collaboration. The resulting portraits resisted the flattening force of stereotype and invited viewers to confront their own implicit biases surrounding race, gender expression, and sexuality. In this way, I Am More Than Who You See aligned with curatorial models that prioritized self-authorship and rejected the historical objectification of marginalized bodies in visual culture.

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Ultimately, this exhibition challenged viewers to move beyond binary assumptions and essentialist readings of identity—whether based on skin color, gender expression, or sexual orientation—and instead encounter the subjects as complex, self-defined individuals. It invited engagement with identity not as something easily categorized but as fluid, relational, and deeply human.