Lola Flash Exhibition at Project Row Houses Features Decades of Activist Photography

Photographer Lola Flash is currently featured in the exhibition 'Artist Round 60: Rooted in Perception' at Project Row Houses in Houston, running through May 31, 2026. The show includes newly commissioned works for FotoFest's 2026 biennial 'Global Visions – FotoFest at 40'. Flash, a New Jersey native and graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art (1981) and London College of Printing (MA 2003), has built a four-decade career focusing on queer and Black communities with an activist perspective. Their work emerged from the 1980s New York AIDS crisis, where they were involved with ACT UP and appeared in Gran Fury's iconic 1989 poster 'Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do'. Flash's early 'Cross Colour' series (begun in college) used slide film printed on negative paper to invert colors, creating symbolic images that challenged racial and gender binaries. This technique was applied to document AIDS activism, protests, and queer life, moving away from traditional documentary photography. In the 1990s, Flash relocated to London for twelve years, earning a master's degree and beginning the '[sur]passing]' portrait series, which examines pigmentocracy and identity using large-format photography inspired by historical portraiture. Their portraiture practice aims to create an archive of queer, Black, and brown individuals, addressing underrepresentation. Since 2019, Flash has developed 'syzygy, the vision', a self-portrait series where they wear an orange prison jumpsuit and an astronaut helmet in various global locations, exploring themes of mass incarceration, Afrofuturism, and historical trauma. The Project Row Houses installation includes large-scale prints, a boat, a school desk for visitor interaction, and an audio component featuring music and readings. Flash, who recently gained broader recognition with a 2025 show at Jenkins Johnson Gallery in New York, emphasizes documenting marginalized communities to ensure their presence is remembered.