The photographic work of Rashid Johnson incorporates a range of topics from the socio-political implications of homelessness to the African diaspora and the history of the antebellum South. Using chicken bones and black-eyed peas as well as various body parts—toes, elbows, feet—in abstract compositions, his photographs evoke travel and movement across time and history. Johnson uses the laborious 19-century Van Dyke printing process, reinforcing his continual interest in challenging the medium of photography.

Johnson is a graduate of the photography department of Columbia College, Chicago.