As part of the Global Open Call “Women by Women”, PhotoVogue has awarded three grants to outstanding participants: Myriam Boulos (Lebanon), Alice Poyzer (UK), and Laila Annmarie Stevens (USA).
We sat down with Laila Annmarie Stevens, who received the Rising Voice Grant, awarded to an emerging artist showing originality and promise.
Laila Annmarie Stevens is a Black queer photographer and visual artist whose work aims to redefine the conception of family through a queer lens. Her project, Clayton Sisterhood Project, explores queer kinship and its contemporary forms. Stevens photographs her sisters and nieces as they move from Queens, NY, to Clayton, North Carolina—a reverse migration that serves as an act of remembrance, cherishing their lineage and the ancestral knowledge of Black women. Their black-and-white portraits depict scenes of everyday life: close-ups and group pictures in which the subjects stare directly at the camera—a quiet reminder of self-determination, endurance, and the power of reimagining intimacy and relationships for both those who came before them and the generations to come.
How did you first approach photography?
I first approached photography in high school. I would practice making portraits with my best friend at the time, JoliAmour DuBose-Morris, whom I met when I was sixteen. She felt like a creative sister — someone who not only was willing, but who encouraged me to experiment after class. That time and friendship were essential; they were nurtured through and through, and taught me how the feeling — and the rawness — of the human experience can be evoked through images, especially the crucial experience of having a true friend as a young Black girl navigating the world.
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Your work is, in your words, about the longing for ancestral remembrance. What aspects of Black women’s ancestral knowledge do you want to cherish?
If I were to pinpoint one aspect of Black women’s ancestral knowledge that I find most vital to cherish, it would be attuning to the somatic and listening to intuition — because we hold incredible intelligence in our bodies.
It’s a living experience passed down through feeling — through the heart, the ears, and the gut. It’s a deeply embodied wisdom that I see as a critical counterpoint to our increasingly digitised world.
We hold great knowledge stored in the body’s very movements — the warmth of soul in planting and harvesting, the specific sway of the hips in dance, alone or with others. These are not performed gestures; they are histories, catharses, prayers, and maps of cultural continuity. The body is a powerful vessel for memory, alongside words, photographs, and sculptures.
There’s also the “gut feeling” — the intuitive discernment for truth in people and in making sound decisions. It’s a hyper-perceptive sense. To cherish this somatic knowledge is to honor a lineage of those who have felt the same. When I began to realise I was not the only one to experience my troubles, I came to see myself as one-of-many, not one-of-one. I view the reclamation of this bodily knowledge as a radical act of ancestral remembrance — and a guide toward a more embodied future, as long as I’m willing to reach that deeply.
You reimagine a new conception of family based on queer kinship. Could you elaborate on this definition?
A new conception of family based on queer kinship is, at its heart, an inherently political and liberatory act — especially for Black and Brown people. It is a direct response to historical and systemic exclusion, to the very definitions of legitimacy and belonging.
For those of us whose identities have been marginalised, creating family outside of predetermined models is not merely a personal preference; it’s a strategy of survival and a practice of world-building. It’s a conscious move away from seeking permission from systems that were designed to exclude us, and instead toward building our own networks of unwavering care, mutual aid, and profound affirmation.
It’s the active creation of safety, dignity, and legacy in a world that often denies us all three. This isn’t just reimagining family — it’s a radical exercise in freedom.
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Is there a woman figure in your family you’ve always heard about but never met — someone you would have liked to know and who, in some way, became part of your family’s tradition? Or perhaps a woman in the queer family you’ve created for yourself who inspires you?
I feel deeply blessed to still have three generations of women on my mother’s side — my mom, grandmother, and great-grandmother — all living in Queens, New York. Their presence keeps me connected to lineage in a very tangible way. Through them, I’m constantly reminded of the beauty of continuity, care, and strength that lives in our family’s everyday life.
My father has passed away, and while I don’t have any real memory of my grandmother on his side, I’ve been told I met her as a baby. I wish I could remember her — what her voice sounded like, how she moved through the world. I’m grateful for the verbal memories and photographs shared with me by my aunts on that side. That connection, however distant, adds to my sense of resilience and deepens my desire to hold onto the stories that remain.
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What projects are you currently working on or planning for the future?
Right now, I’m expanding this photographic series through a printmaking project that explores how symbols and language can live on fabric during a residency in November 2025. It’s a way of extending the same questions I ask in my photographs — about memory, lineage, and care — into a more tactile form. Working with fabric feels deeply connected to the body and to ancestral practices of making.
I’m also developing this work into a book that will bring together images, text, and archival materials in conversation. It’s exciting to think about how the project can take shape in different forms — as something that can be held, touched, and passed on.
Discover also:
Alice Poyzer s interview
Myriam Boulos s interview
