Los Angeles Times
Utopia is not a place but a people. Micaiah Carter photographs what it looks like.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
September 11th, 2026
Though Carter’s professional body of work is rooted in the here and now, his personal photographs function in a different register. They are like passageways through time, or perhaps beyond it, where Blackness is the default and love has many homes, each image a threshold of possibility and reclamation. Sit with his images and you will also see: the kin that populate his frame do not take utopia for granted because, like anyone who has tasted it, like anyone who has found restoration in its lush meadows, they know it is not a place but a people. Utopia exists between the care and the kisses and the how you doin’s, it becomes flesh and bone in the embrace of full body hugs and smiles so wide they could devour the sun. It is made real simply by being among your family, be they blood or chosen.