Before arriving in Portland in 2008, and eventually being dubbed "Portland's People's Photographer," the radical queer white elder activist Kendall had already had a wide-ranging life as an educator and organizer. From a childhood of poverty and abuse in Appalachia, Kendall would go on to do oral history in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," to teach theater at Smith College and in universities in Lesotho and South Africa, and to spend more than thirty years teaching creative writing and Theater of the Oppressed in Louisiana, Texas, and South Africa. And woven throughout it all, was Kendall's work as a photographer, with their most well known work being an iconic photo of the Black radical lesbian poet/writer Audre Lorde. Desiree Hellegers speaks with Kendall about their lifelong love of photography and their work documenting Portland social movements.
Photograph by K. Kendall and used with photographer's permission.