FIERCE: Pittsburgh

FIERCE: Pittsburgh is a collaborative photography project by renowned British photographer, activist, and scholar Ajamu X that celebrates the beauty, complexity, and cultural contributions of Pittsburgh’s Black LGBTQ community. Comprising thirteen large-scale palladium portraits created using nineteenth-century photographic processes, the exhibition places Pittsburgh within Ajamu’s growing international FIERCE archive, which also includes portraits made in London, Bristol, and Toronto.

The portraits were created during Ajamu X’s artist residency with Rainbow Serpent in April 2025, a period of intensive collaboration that brought one of the world’s foremost Black queer photographers into sustained dialogue with Pittsburgh’s artists, organizers, educators, healthcare professionals, and cultural leaders. The project marked several important milestones: it was Rainbow Serpent’s first international artist residency and culminated in Ajamu X’s first solo exhibition in the United States, introducing his work to American audiences through a new body of photographs rooted in Pittsburgh.