MXFAM

17 X 19 Premium Gloss Prints, 
Concord, MA 
2020.  

Shot, curated, and exhibited at the Ishibi Gallery all under 2 months.
MXFAM was the affinity group for Black and/or Latinx students at Middlesex School. I took portraits of every single member of MXFAM, faculty and myself included, and displayed them in the school's gallery throughout Black History Month. 

These portraits addressed issues of representation and agency, while also celebrating each subject’s individual talents and personalities. They encouraged the viewer to question why these individuals’ stories were so frequently marginalized. There were 59 members of MXFAM. I asked each of them to write a brief biography about what being Black means to them, granting them agency to express themselves, their experiences, their cultures, and their identities. 

The portraits were accompanied by a video projection, which highlighted one individual at a time along with their respective biography. With each successive visit to the gallery, viewers would “meet” different people through the video, mirroring the gradual process of getting to know the individual personalities that compose the larger group— challenging any assumptions about a monolithic, group identity.

ceninye.com



works

01.  Perhaps Here.

02.  Untitled “American Portraits”

03.  Son of Liberia.

04.  Princess.
05.  From Home.
06.  Self Portraits As An American Optimist.
commissioned  

07.  Design Museum Of Chicago

08.  Onyx, The Black Literary Experience.

09.  Africana Center.

10.  STYLE

11.  Mourning Walls .

12.  Through These Realities.

13.  MXFAM
about               

                 
              God is good,
              all the time. 




© 2025 Cenìnye Harris.  All  Rights Reserved.
 

there is this thing.
I speak vaguely because it’s hard for me to define.
it sits in the in-between, perhaps—the unseen, the here and there.
the future and the present.

       there is this thing.
this feeling, this incredible awe, this incredible—
the incredible discovery that I am living here.
that I am here.

It is amazing to think that I am here.
I don’t know how to make that clear.
that I know not of my origin—



                   that one day—poof!



                   
       I am here.



I am incredibly grateful for being here.
and to God be all the glory.