Alanna Airitam is a Tucson-based, self-taught photographic artist whose work explores historical omissions, representation, and the visual legacies of Black identity. Inspired by early Black studio photographers and Black feminist thinkers, her practice confronts the afterlives of colonialism while imagining Black presence beyond erasure and exclusion.

Through dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, richly toned prints, archival research, and material experimentation, Airitam creates works that bridge photography, painting, iconography, and object making. Her portraiture draws on historical traditions while incorporating contemporary photographic processes and Afrofuturist reimagination.

Her work has been exhibited in venues including Etherton Gallery and Phoenix Art Museum, and featured in Southwest Contemporary Magazine, Apocalypse Magazine, and Dear Dave Magazine. Airitam’s practice invites viewers to reconsider who is seen, how we see, and what it means to reclaim Black presence in the archive, the canon, and the future.