By Nicolette Mallow
Former SCAD-Atlanta Distinguished Visiting Professor Carrie Mae Weems will be exhibiting her multimedia installation artwork exploring the human rights movement in both the United States and abroad this fall at the Red Gallery. Commissioned by SCAD and the National Black Arts Festival, a cultural and artistic celebration of dance, music, theatre, film and more; the exhibition was a collaborated effort of artists, made into one project.
Weems taught an “innovate special topics” course at SCAD-Atlanta, working with students to create the commissioned project: a film titled “Constructing History” and correlated photographs. Together, with the direction and talent of Weems, her students’ creativity and the National Black Arts Festival – they relived momentous memories of history in regards to human rights through the use of film and photography.
One of the photos, “A Woman Observes” is a black and white photograph with some contrasts of light shining in through two rectangular windows of a grey-looking wall as a black woman with thick, curly hair stands in a white robe staring at a tree. A clock hangs on the wall and reads five to emphasize time. The tree is young and undeveloped, as if it was just planted and is ready to bloom and grow into a rooted beauty of bark and wood. The rest of the image is grey and muted with a spotlight hanging above in the ceiling of the industrialized room. The ivory robe she wears, the windows, and the light gleam on the floor, leading the viewer’s eyes about the photo. The heavy glow of light flowing in through the windows reflects around the woman’s feet and where she is standing; as if the light is shimmering through her as it shines into the room, like a child holding a glass prism into the sun.
According to Weems, “Through the act of performance, with our own bodies, we are allowed to experience and to connect the historical past to the present – to the now, to the moment. By inhabiting the moment, we live the experience; we stand in the shoes of others and come to know firsthand what is often only imagined, lost, forgotten.”
Weems, an award winning photographer, has been featured in over 50 exhibitions in the United States and abroad. In 2008 she received the Skowhegan Medal for Photography and currently resides in New York City. In 2005 she was given the Distinguished Photographer’s Award by Women in Photography International.
Red Gallery will be presenting “Constructing History: A Requiem to Mark the Movement” Oct. 2 – Nov. 21. A reception will be held Friday, Oct. 5 from 5-7 p.m. during the Savannah Gallery Hop. Weems will speak Oct. 9 from 7-8 p.m. at Trustees Theater. For more information, visit www.scadexhibitions.com.
