beneath the water

Photo from the book and music compilation Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography (2009) by Jim Linderman.

beneath the water is a multimedia archival project exploring Black American religion and spirituality. Historically, The Black Church has stood as a place for community, gathering, planning, and refuge. It's no secret that in recent years, its importance has decreased, and younger generations are not as active or present as they once were in the Church. 'beneath the water' is a project to explore the historical and modern functions of religion and spirituality within the Black community. Through photo, video, films, articles, church programs, interviews, art, and more, the archive will create an interactive, artistic database centered around documentation and uncovering unseen facts and narratives about the structure and experiences within different denominations and belief systems. Over the past three and a half years, I've collected photos, videos, and conducted one-on-one interviews about past and present experiences within the Church. A lot of what I've collected is hard-to-find, rare, previously unseen, and selected from private family and church archives. The archive will be available for public digital view, entirely free of charge, in June 2026.