Not a License to Kill is a documentary project created during the Black Lives Matter protests in Detroit in the summer of 2020. Made from within the protests themselves, the work moves between participation and observation, using photography to hold onto moments that felt urgent, heavy, and impossible to fully process in real time.

I approached the images cinematically, not to dramatize, but to reflect how the experience actually felt. Charged, collective, and emotionally heightened. The project focuses on the presence and power of the people I stood alongside, while remaining aware of the deeper context surrounding us: that these protests were unfolding within systems built on the exploitation of the very communities demanding to be heard.

The work is grounded in a tension between visibility and resistance. It documents not just protest, but assertion. A collective insistence on being seen, listened to, and acknowledged. At its core, Not a License to Kill is about people claiming space that has always been theirs, and refusing to be ignored any longer.