“Surfaces of Projection”: Dell M. Hamilton on Performance Art and Black Embodiment

In this episode of In the Foreground, Caro Fowler (Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) speaks with Dell M. Hamilton, an artist, scholar, writer, and independent curator. They discuss how Dell’s long affiliation with the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University shaped her perspective as an artist, and the impact of literature and architectural spaces on Dell’s performances, including Blues\Blank\Black, a piece she presented in the galleries of the Clark Art Institute in November 2019. Dell reflects on the possibilities of art to foment political change, and describes the potential for performance art to produce images of the experiences of Black women that otherwise go unseen.