Since arriving in Columbus, Ohio and traveling across the state, Jared Thorne has witnessed the unsettling reality that our Supreme Court recognized in Women’s Whole Health v. Hellerstedt: that the locations of Planned Parenthoods draw a complicated map marking distinct territories of access and belonging, power and desire, class and race. Calls to defund or otherwise restrict Planned Parenthood continue despite recent Supreme Court rulings, posing catastrophic threats to women and girls in predominantly African-American and Latino communities.

Thorne plans to photograph all of the Planned Parenthoods in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—states where disproportionate amounts of Black and Latino women use their services—and collect stories from the critical staff who work and bear witness to the essential role that Planned Parenthood plays there. Throne will explore the interplay between landscapes and the identities, desires, and power of the women whose access to reproductive healthcare is an object of political contest.

Jared Thorne holds a B.A. in English Literature from Dartmouth College and a Master in Fine Arts from Columbia University. His work speaks to issues of identity and subjectivity as they relate to class and race in America and abroad. As a Black artist investigating the culture of his people, Jared Thorne seeks to challenge both hegemonic and self-imposed constructs of Black identity in America and beyond.