Tieshka K. Smith is a Philadelphia-based visual storyteller, writer, speaker, and arts consultant whose dynamic practice spans over a decade of exploring American identity through the intersections of race, class, and neighborhood change. A masterful photographer, Tieshka's lens captures powerful narratives that challenge inequities and amplify the voices of marginalized communities. Her work interrogates placemaking, civic identity, and how cultural narratives are shaped and contested.

As the founder of TKenzi Enterprises, LLC, Tieshka has showcased her work in numerous exhibitions and community projects, both locally and nationally. Her photography has been exhibited at esteemed venues such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and the Germantown Historical Society. She is the author of Compositions of Black Joy: A Visual Chronicle of the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival (2015–2022), a book that documents seven years of photography of one of the city’s longest running Juneteenth festivals and celebrates her decade-long association with the Johnson House Historic Site in Germantown.

Beyond her artistic practice, Tieshka has served as an artist-in-residence, curator, and consultant on numerous arts-based community engagement projects. Her collaborative projects include the Stand With Ukraine Listening Loom, created with textile artist Kathryn Pannepacker, and her leadership on community listening sessions and creative programming with Networks for Training and Development, Inc. She also held a teaching residency with Eastern University's Prison Education Program, where she co-organized exhibits and public programs showcasing the creative talents of incarcerated students.

Tieshka's accolades include grants and awards from #ARTisPHL, the Philadelphia Assembly, and the Fund for Germantown, reflecting her commitment to fostering resilience and innovation through her work. Her projects, such as #RacismIsASickness, demonstrate her ability to pair art and activism to engage with complex social issues in meaningful ways.

A prolific writer and public speaker, Tieshka has been featured at conferences, academic institutions, and community events, sharing her insights on topics ranging from the power of photography as a tool for social change to the role of art in addressing systemic inequities. Her thought leadership is further exemplified in her written contributions to Broad Street Review and forthcoming publications on restorative practices in education through art.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Tieshka holds a Master of Project Management from Keller Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Northwestern University. She has also completed training in trauma-informed best practices for teaching artists and has extensive experience and training in grant writing, project management, and community development.

With her deep commitment to fostering connection, creativity, and critical dialogue, Tieshka K. Smith continues to use her talents to uplift communities and reimagine how art and storytelling can inspire collective action and social change.

Since 2010, after transitioning from a career in nonprofit program evaluation and project management, my artistic practice has centered community engagement, collaborative storytelling, and unearthing histories that challenge dominant narratives. Grounded in lived experience, I use digital photography, writing, and archival research to explore how race, class, civic identity, and place intersect to shape belonging—and exclusion. My work reveals hidden stories, provokes critical reflection, and invites others to examine their own roles in upholding or disrupting the status quo. I believe that meaning-making is a collective act, not a gift from gatekeepers, and I create work that invites discomfort, accountability, and shared responsibility.

As a Philadelphia-based photographer and writer whose work explores memory, placemaking, civic identity, and class through an intimate documentary lens, my practice centers the overlooked, the everyday, and the powerful act of bearing witness. As a teaching artist, arts consultant, and artist matchmaker, I create pathways for connection—linking people, projects, and purpose to amplify community-driven creativity and cultural equity.

My work lives at the intersection of memory, civic identity, and class consciousness—where photographs become both archive and altar. I use the camera to document joy, displacement, resilience, and ritual in everyday Black life, with a deep focus on how communities shape and are shaped by the places they inhabit. Through writing and imagery, I ask who gets remembered, who gets erased, and how collective narratives can shift when we tell our own stories. Whether I’m capturing a neighborhood festival or a crumbling stoop, I’m making visible what systems often obscure: that belonging, beauty, and power are birthrights.

My process begins with walking—moving through neighborhoods, festivals, and everyday spaces with an eye toward what’s overlooked or endangered. I work with a digital camera and minimal editing tools, relying on observation, intuition, and deep presence to guide my lens. I don’t stage scenes—I wait for the truth to unfold. My goal is to chronicle a sense of presence that resides in moments of transition, tension, and joy. Behind the camera, I am a witness; in the archive, I am a steward. Together, the image and its context become an act of cultural preservation.