The vintage images are as old as the expectations they can summon. An ambrotype from the 1860s with two men of apparently different races, squaring off, fists up. An oddly formal studio portrait of men cloaked in Ku Klux Klan robes. A pensive portrait of an abolitionist. A slave master, clutching a whip and staring defiantly.

But instead of receiving any explanations, viewers have to plumb their own minds — and assumptions — going from each photograph’s poles of black and white into the gray nuances of reality. That is the power behind a remarkable interactive website called “Mirror of Race,” which uses 19th century photographs depicting people of various races in situations that are often ambiguous in their content and intent.

Unlike a classic museum exhibition where wall labels provide context and analysis, “Mirror of Race” invites viewers to first confront its imagery free of curatorial interpretation. Viewers can then click on the picture’s accompanying texts, one with information about what is known about it, the other a scholarly analysis of its subjects and their interactions. The information raises more questions and, hopefully, spurs discussion.

The project was founded by Derek Burrows, a musician and storyteller whose work draws upon the traditions of the African diaspora; Greg French, who has amassed one of most important private collections of early American photographs dealing with race; and Gregory Fried, who teaches philosophy at Suffolk University in Boston.

“Mirror of Race” — which also includes essays, short films, and smaller special exhibitions devoted to pictures of slaves, abolitionists, racial violence and gender — addresses a drawback in dealing with racism: Most Americans would rather not talk about the racial anxieties, suspicions and stereotypes that keep them apart. But the website shows that photography can be an effective way to jostle even well-intentioned people out of denial.

“Photography has the paradoxical ability to allow us to contemplate intimately from a safe distance, and so, like an anesthetic, photography can give us the opportunity to confront the historical reality of race without recoiling in anger, guilt, or fear,” Mr. Fried said in an email interview. “It gives us the chance to reflect and to think without immediately turning away from what is uncomfortable.”

The project’s central metaphor, the mirror, derives from its most dominant artifact, the daguerreotype. The polished and reflective metal surfaces of these early photographs, when viewed at a certain angle, meld their own imagery with that of the viewer.

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Though no longer reflective on the screen, the images in “Mirror of Race” provide a metaphorical link between the present and a safely distant past. In viewing them, participants are invited to privately self-examine racial perceptions, free of judgment or retribution, and ultimately acknowledge that racism is not just the domain of the white supremacist but is everyone’s problem.

Consider a recent Op-Ed article in which a doctor noted that African-American breast cancer patients were sometimes “less likely to be recommended by physicians to receive curative cancer care,” even when they had similar health insurance coverage as whites.

“I don’t think this is because doctors are racist, but rather that they make assumptions about race that can be harmful,” Dr. Harold P. Freeman wrote. He added that “a specialist treating a poor black woman may doubt that she will comply with a complex treatment and recommend a simpler, but non-curative, therapy instead.”

Those kinds of perceptions, which are rooted in racial stereotypes or prejudice, are not always so deadly, but they are often resistant to change. Mr. Fried observed that the “Mirror of Race” takes its cue from cognitive psychology. “Virtually everyone, no matter their way of self-identifying, projects implicit bias in the way they see others,” he said of recent research. “The good news is that if we become aware of this implicit bias and reflect upon how we apply it, we can make progress in reducing its hold on us.”

The inability to see or even name the problem — insisting, for example, that the indifference toward black women by the medical establishment is not racist — can make it virtually impossible to resolve. “Mirror of Race” insists that owning up to blind spots through honest self-inquiry is crucial to getting past them.

“While no one can overcome prejudice either in themselves or in society just by reflection, it is a step in both the internal and interpersonal dialogue that needs to happen,” Mr. Fried said. “We must start somewhere, and we can always start with ourselves.”



A related exhibition, “The Mirror of Race: Seeing Ourselves Through History,” continues at the Adams Gallery at Suffolk University in Boston through May 18.

Maurice Berger is a research professor and the chief curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a consulting curator at the Jewish Museum in New York.

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