Marlon Tobias is an artist, historian, and storyteller who approaches his work with the eye of an archivist and the heart of an empath. He amplifies the human experience through the lens of his community in a manner that is sensitive and striking. His work dives into American history and the historical relationship between African Americans and their pursuit for land ownership. Inspired by his own family’s archives, particularly, his great-great-grandfather’s (William “Cubby” Wordlaw) profound legacy of passing down hundreds of acres of land from generation to generation, Tobias’s work delves into the precious, intimate nuances between people and their spaces. To know that the places and people in pictures or names on documents once played a critical role in one’s family’s life—yet to not personally know them—is a universal relationship we all have with the past, but in Tobias’s case, it’s incredibly special. In contrast to didactic articulation, Marlon uses these personal moments most significant to him to make room for engagement; his figures embody humanity.