Artists Lava Thomas (left) and Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (right)
During this pivotal time of civil unrest and the continued questioning of violence inherent within existing monuments dedicated to conquest, supremacy and subjugation, interdisciplinary visual artists, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, and Lava Thomas will be in conversation concerning dismantling the hegemonic factors within public art selection and who determines what monumental is. They will unpack the problematics within public art commissions, artwork removal, and the lifelong impact that these cycles of commissioning have upon communities that live within proximity to the work and beyond. How do these monuments impact the psyches of the geographies in which they are placed? What narratives do they continually assert? How does one create a monument that is reparative or is a means to begin the balancing of the scales of history? How do we stand in solidarity with re-imagining the possibilities for monuments in the face of an insistence upon historical amnesia/purposeful forgetting?
Whether creating memorials to victims of racial violence, illuminating the labor of women in the struggle for equality, or stretching the conventions of portraiture and representation, Thomas’s practice amplifies ideas that center visibility, resilience, and empowerment in the face of erasure, trauma, and oppression. Her oeuvre spans drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, and installation, exploring the events, figures and movements that inform and shape our individual and collective histories.
Hinkle is an interdisciplinary visual artist, writer and performer. Her practice fluctuates between collaborations and participatory projects with alternative gallery spaces within various communities to projects that are intimate and based upon her private experiences in relationship to historical events and contexts. A term that has become a mantra for her practice is the "Historical Present," as she examines the residue of history and how it affects our contemporary world perspective. Hinkle is Assistant Professor of Painting at UC Berkeley’s Department of Art Practice.
Presented by the UC Berkeley’s Department of Art Practice and Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Series.