After Trump’s inauguration, ANOHNI was compelled to select a series of books and records from her collection and emblazon them with the directive “DON’T CRY”. Issued to both allies and enemies, the statement’s intended audience is defined by the nature of the media upon which it is painted. Suffice to say, the US has become a less safe place for certain demographics to express themselves.

ANOHNI’s interest in underground photographic portrait and landscape as a student in NYC quickly led her to the work of Peter Hujar, David Warnarowicz and Jack Smith. Stumbling through bookstores she also found precedent in the work of Eugène Atget, a pioneering French photographer who soulfully documented the disappearing remnants of old Paris in the early 20th Century. Families, cities, and cultures fall, their memories remaining only in technologies of light capture.

DONT CRY PARIS is complrised of a frontispiece painting, 2 panels of collage and a signed dedication as letter of solidairty to a city ANOHNI loves. Also included isan  Antony and the Johnsons’ program from a NYC concert in 1999, and an ostrich feather bookmark.