IMAGE COURTESY OF ZOLA LAMOTHE

October 20, 7pm
Taking Creative Risks with Zola Lamothe

Zola Lamothe works at the intersection of art and activism, using set photography to resurrect our shared history and educate communities in relevant, accessible, and impactful ways. Embracing the Ghanaian principle of Sankofa, her work revisits the past to inform and better our future.

Zola’s photography project Underst(h)ood highlights how modern reality mirrors the height of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in America. She draws connections between the past and present by situating a figure in a KKK mask at various institutions that historically have been, and continue to be, sites of white supremacist oppression, including in government, education, and religious institutions. She hopes to expand viewers’ understanding of how the Klan was able to amass power in both covert and overt ways. Given the sensitivity of the subject matter and the current political climate, Zola assumes significant personal, financial, and political risk by courageously critiquing civic institutions on which artists and cultural workers often depend for professional opportunity and support. 

Zola Lamothe was a 2025 recipient of the Creative Risk Fund sponsored by the Herbert Simon Family Foundation. She was also a 2023 recipient of the Power Plant Grant, a grant run by Big Car Collaborative and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Her series Unveiling a Forgotten Legacy has been exhibited at 1000 Words Gallery, Madam Walker Legacy Center, and Aurora PhotoCenter, among other venues, and was the subject of a self-published book in 2025.