There’s something electric about stumbling across an image that makes you pause—not just because it’s beautiful, but because it feels like truth. That’s how I first encountered Renell Medrano’s work. Her photographs carry presence, a resonance of place, body, lineage, and voice. And as someone who moves between cultures—France, Switzerland, Cameroon, the UK—and lives in that fertile space of “what it means to belong,” her perspective struck me deeply.

From the Bronx to the Dominican Republic: Origins Matter

Raised in the Bronx and spending summers in the Dominican Republic, Medrano’s upbringing is grounded in two worlds: the urban grit of NYC and the cultural soil of the Caribbean. She picked up her mother’s point‑and‑shoot camera at 14, capturing friends in the street, family in the DR, everyday light and colour. That early curiosity became the foundation of her visual voice.

What makes her work so compelling is its rootedness. Her subjects, the stories she tells, the frames she’s drawn to—they’re not borrowed for effect. They’re lived. The Bronx blocks, the Caribbean summer air, the laughter and struggle—they seep in. And because of that, her work speaks to the kind of multi-layered identity I think about a lot—diasporic, fluid, proudly in-between.

Redefining Beauty and the Gaze

In mainstream media, images of Black and brown people are often flattened or exoticized. What Medrano does is the opposite. Her frames embrace vulnerability, texture, dimension. Her sitters are regal, candid, alive. There’s a generosity to her gaze. One that says: you matter, I see you, I will show you with care.

For Black culture, that kind of gaze is radical. It’s not about spectacle, it’s about presence. It’s about turning the camera back on spaces and people who’ve often been looked at, and instead looking with. For me, as someone invested in how Black British and diasporic identities are represented, that’s key.

Diaspora, Identity, and the Power of Story

Her Caribbean heritage is not a footnote, it’s a strong current in her work. Medrano’s personal series, like PAMPARA, places the Dominican Republic in focus—not as a postcard, but as home, memory, and aesthetic archive. That sense of belonging and movement resonates for many of us in the diaspora: we carry worlds within us. We live between, across, beyond.

Her images remind us that being Black is not a single story. It’s multiple geographies, multiple aesthetics, multiple heritages. Her Bronx, her Dominican, her NYC—each facet matters. That layering matters for how we think about Black culture today: in Britain, in Africa, across the world.

Shifting Power and Changing the Frame

Medrano bridges fashion, art, and documentary. She works with high-profile campaigns and magazines, but retains the visual integrity of her roots. Her editorial work doesn’t feel divorced from her personal work—it feels like an extension of it. She’s shot major publications and earned recognition like the 2024 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for commercial and editorial photography.

This matters. Because when someone grounded in community, memory, and identity steps into spaces of high fashion and mainstream visibility, it changes the picture. It changes who gets to hold the camera, whose gaze is centered, whose stories are told. For Black culture broadly—especially for diasporic creatives trying to navigate legacy spaces—Medrano proves your vantage point is your strength.

Why Her Work Matters for Black Culture (and for Us)

Here’s what I see as the bigger ripples of her work:

• Expanded representation: She shows Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean, and urban-diasporic identities in full bloom. Medrano widens the frame of Blackness beyond narrow binaries.
• Aesthetics rooted in authenticity: Her visuals don’t pretend—they belong. They carry memory, texture, life.
• Stories of belonging: Her images don’t just show identity—they narrate it. The movement between Bronx streets and Dominican homes tells us diaspora is alive, dynamic, layered.
• Creative empowerment: For young Black creatives (UK, US, Africa, global), her trajectory says: you don’t have to fit a narrow mold. You can bring your world. It’s valid, it’s potent.
• Bridging worlds: She’s both community documentarian and high-fashion player. That duality matters for culture because culture isn’t just underground or mainstream—it’s both, and everything in between.

My Take: What Medrano Means to Me

Here’s my voice, raw and reflective, because reading her story makes me think of my own.

I’m a Black woman of Cameroonian heritage, born in France, lived in Switzerland, and now in the UK. I carry multiple languages, multiple geographies, multiple sightlines. When I look at Medrano’s photographs, there’s a mirror—not because we share the same background—but because we share the tension of in-between-ness. The yearning for roots. The knowing of “half-worlds.” The reclaiming of space.

Her images make me think of all those times I looked at myself and wondered: where do I belong? Which version of me is visible? Which version is ‘allowed’ to be beautiful, strong, whole? Medrano says: all of you. The light in your skin, the shades of your culture, the multilingual voice you carry, they matter.

In my own work—on my blog, my TikTok, my search to amplify Black British culture and diasporic identity, I see in her an example. A reminder that aesthetics are culture. That representation is politics. That the visual world we build affects how we feel about ourselves, our bodies, our histories.

I’m inspired. I’m activated. I’m grateful that creatives like her make the journey feel less lonely, less marginal. They show that you can look like you, feel like you, bring your diaspora into your art and your life—and it will resonate.

Because Renell Medrano isn’t just a photographer whose images I admire. She’s a cultural pulse. A reminder that when Black identity is seen fully, the world looks richer, deeper, more authentic. For Black culture, for diasporic culture, for me—and yes, for you reading this—her work isn’t just pretty pictures. It’s essential.

Let’s keep looking, keep telling, keep seeing—ourselves, our roots, our movement through the world. Because visibility is freedom. And our stories deserve the frame.

see you next week, guys!

Perrine

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