Throughout her career Carrie Mae Weems’ works have compelled viewers to actively consider how the world is structured, revealing systems of oppression and inequality while exploring the relationships between power, class, race and gender.

Looking at how the past comes to bear on the present, as well as reflecting on history in order to engage with the present and question where we might be going, Weems' body of work 'Constructing History' (2008) self-reflexively considers the role photography plays in shaping our imaginings and our relationship to history.

In this series the artist collaborated with students from the Savannah College of Art and Design to re-stage scenes from iconic photographs. For Weems, “through the act of performance, with our own bodies, we are allowed to experience and connect the historical past to the present - to the now, to the moment. By inhabiting the moment, we live the experience; we stand in the shadows of others and come to know firsthand what is often only imagined, lost, forgotten.”