- Jan 14
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 15
ARCHIVO LAB | Visual Artist 2026
RAYMOND THOMPSON JR.
USA
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Raymond, an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and visual journalist, is based in Austin, TX.
He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. His academic journey includes an MFA in Photography from West Virginia University, an MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and a degree in American Studies from the University of Mary Washington. Raymond explores how race, memory, representation, and place combine to shape the Black environmental imagination of the North American landscape. He won the 1619 Aftermath Grant (2023) and the 2021 Lenscatch Student Prize (2021). Raymond has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including the Fotofest Biennial - Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2022-23 (2024).
LAB PROJECT
This project explores the environmental imaginations of the “Turpentine Negro”—Black laborers whose lives were deeply entwined with the pine forests of the American South. Beginning in the 1830s, the turpentine industry harvested pine resin to produce tar, pitch, gum, turpentine, and rosin—materials essential to shipbuilding and repair. Black Americans comprised the majority of the workforce in this hazardous industry, both during slavery and in the decades that followed. The last turpentine crop was harvested in Georgia in 2001, marking the end of a nearly two-century legacy. Within this extractive economy, the Turpentine Negro developed quiet forms of resistance, grounded in an intimate relationship with the natural world. Their environmental knowledge—rooted in observation and oral tradition—included telling time by the sun, predicting weather by insect behavior, avoiding venomous snakes, harvesting animals, and interpreting spiritual signs in nature.
This project engages with archival texts and photographs that document the lives and labor of turpentine workers. By combining historical materials with speculative visual works, I aim to reclaim and reimagine the knowledge systems that enabled survival within the brutal conditions of the pine forest. This work contributes to the broader conversation around Photography, Archive, and Environmental Imaginaries by using the archive as a foundation for speculative photographic practice.
