Deana Lawson's Sons of Cush

Deana Lawson explores black intimacy, family, sexuality and spirituality. In Sons of Cush, a heavily tattooed, torso-nude muscular man gazes directly at the camera, a newborn baby in his protective embrace. To his left, a second man’s arm clutches a stack of dollar bills, the word ‘DOPE’ etched onto his knuckles. Lawson’s photographs leave nothing to chance, and through the artist’s careful placing of props she demands the viewer unravel the symbols of black culture.

What does it mean to be a man today? The Barbican's Masculinities: Liberation through Photography considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day.