Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other
Sonya Clark is a multidisciplinary artist whose work examines the experiences of the African diaspora in the United States. Clark’s astute application of ordinary fibre materials, including hair and thread, and her communal approach to these works profoundly engages viewers artistically and intellectually. She often explores the power of community and collective response in the stance against the impacts of colonialism and racial oppression. Clark is also a professor of art at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She is determined as both an artist and educator to empower people to learn, contribute to applicable dialogue, and, as she puts it, to “claim agency in what happens next in the future of our society.”
Image: The Hair Craft Project (Left: The Hair Craft Project: Hairstyles on Canvas, 2013; Right: The Hair Craft Project: Hairstylists with Sonya, 2014. Left: Silk threads, beads, shells, and yarn on canvas; Right: Pigment prints on archival paper. Left (towards center): Anita Hill-Moses, Marsha Johnson, Ife Robinson, Ingrid Riley, Jamilah Williams, Natasha Superville, Jasmine and Jameika Pollard and Dionne James Eggleston; Right (towards center): Marsha Johnson, Ife Robinson, Ingrid Riley, Jamilah Williams, Natasha Superville, Jasmine and Jameika Pollard and Dionne James Eggleston, Chaunda King, Kamela Bhagat and Nasirah Muhammad.
The Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other travelling exhibition, shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and now at the Museum of Arts and Designs, New York, USA, chronicles an extensive timeline of Clark’s community-focused artistic endeavours. The exhibition derives its name from the 1970 poem “Paul Robeson” written by Gwendolyn Brooks, an accomplished African American poet. The poem is a tribute to the titular actor and activist, who also broke barriers in his field. In the poem Brooks concludes, “we are each other’s / harvest: / we are each other’s / business: we are each other’s / magnitude and bond.” For Clark, the exhibition provides an opportunity for her to add to what she calls “the ancestral archive with purpose” through interdependence and unity, a mission she fulfils with compelling artistic merit through a series of ongoing participatory and other collaborative works.
The Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other travelling exhibition, shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and now at the Museum of Arts and Designs, New York, USA, chronicles an extensive timeline of Clark’s community-focused artistic endeavours. The exhibition derives its name from the 1970 poem “Paul Robeson” written by Gwendolyn Brooks, an accomplished African American poet. The poem is a tribute to the titular actor and activist, who also broke barriers in his field. In the poem Brooks concludes, “we are each other’s / harvest: / we are each other’s / business: we are each other’s / magnitude and bond.” For Clark, the exhibition provides an opportunity for her to add to what she calls “the ancestral archive with purpose” through interdependence and unity, a mission she fulfils with compelling artistic merit through a series of ongoing participatory and other collaborative works.
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