Stranger Fruit

Author: Jon Henry
Publisher: Monolith Editions
Year: 2020
Pages:
ISBN: 978-1954877023

“Stranger Fruit was created in response to the senseless murders of black men across the nation by police violence. Even with smart phones and dash cams recording the actions, more lives get cut short due to unnecessary and excessive violence. I set out to photograph mothers with their sons in their environment, reenacting what it must feel like to endure this pain.” - JH.

Controversially Jon Henry's exhibition of Strange Fruit was abruptly withdrawn and cancelled indefinitely by Daytona State College’s Southeast Museum of Photography (SMP) week's before being due to open in Jan 2023 claiming water damage from a faulty HVAC system. An anonymous letter to the artist from a former museum worker that summer laid out a different narrative, that the school’s administration canceled the show due to it's subject matter and that museum staffers had been instructed to tell Henry and the public it was because of HVAC problems in the gallery.