scene from a map of the empire that was of the same scale as the empire (2024)
Interdisciplinary Artist
and Museum Curator of Time-Based Media Art
Much of my work focuses on excavating stories of community resistance for justice too-long denied. I create counter-monuments that scrutinize the stories America tells about itself. These works are placed in cities as digital projections, annotating the built environment; or as interactive and immersive installations in museums. My practice asks a viewer to assess their role in history and the part every person has to play in freedom for all.
I have spent a career at the forefront of the creation and conservation of digital artwork, and exploring new frontiers in interactive storytelling technology. I create site-specific installations brought to life through motion-activated video projection and sound. My work is intended as urban archaeology, recovering lost histories of our communities and drawing audiences to sites reverberating with ancestral memory—where the passage of time or intentional forgetting has blurred our vision of a shared humanity. It is artwork that is unfinished until a viewer becomes an active participant in reenacting pivotal moments of liberation and bearing witness to long-past spasms of violence.
My background as a lawyer and political organizer steeped in democracy work informs my approach. This work takes the Civil Rights Movement’s dream of a “beloved community” as a starting point, in which a critical mass of people become committed to the philosophy and methods of nonviolence. Love and trust might yet triumph over fear and hate.
I am also a history museum curator and exhibition designer confronting human rights and social change through projected site-specific video projection, glass sculptures cast from geospatial data, artist-led city walks, and the use of video game engine tools as narrative forms. My studio practice and curatorial projects synthesize disparate disciplines— art, the law, cartography, and critical theory --into a unified narrative of power, place, and advocacy for sustainable change.
My advocacy for Atlanta arts and culture began in 1997 when I successfully sued the City of Atlanta as an ACLU attorney to overturn Atlanta’s ordinance banning street artists and musicians from busking in public. Soon after, I was asked by Georgia Governor Roy Barnes to assist former Mayor Maynard Jackson and future Mayor Shirley Franklin in drafting an anti-sprawl strategy for the Atlanta region that incorporated city arts funding, environmental justice, and clean air goals into a regional transportation plan. I continued this advocacy once I quit the law at age 30 to become an installation artist and photographer. I have also taught since 2008 as adjunct faculty at Emory University, Georgia State University, and Agnes Scott College, offering college classes on photography, experimental printmaking, and filmmaking with a focus on social justice-minded artmaking, digital futurism, and photographic and cinematic art history.