Thomas Allen Harris
Mother, Bethel, Harlem, USA
with Hunter College IMA MFA:
Chris J Gauthier
Patri González Ramírez
Cynthia Groya
Janis Mahnure
Melissa Montero
Allie Shyer
Jacqueline Wade
August 30th - September 29th, 2018
Hunter East Harlem Gallery
2180 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10035
Curated by Arden Sherman
Mother, Bethel, Harlem, USA is a collaboration between artist and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris and students from Hunter College’s IMA MFA program. Through an investigation of Harris’s extensive body of work as a photographer, filmmaker, and creator of the interdisciplinary project Digital Diaspora Family Reunion, the students have conceived works that are inspired by the family photo album, practices of personal archiving, and the local community in Harlem and East Harlem. Harris’s own investigations of site and history began with an exploration of his personal relationship to Harlem. On view here is a remixing of his own work with the work of his grandfather, Albert S. Johnson, Jr., an amateur photographer who spent his life documenting the First AME Church: Bethel on 132nd Street and Lenox Ave. This curatorial process has led to the resurfacing of Harris’s 1987 documentation of James Baldwin’s funeral and is being exhibited for the first time in the HEHG gallery window. In Mother, Bethel, Harlem, USA, Hunter's IMA MFA students directly respond to Harris’s practice. The projects in exhibition explore familial artifacts, the relationship between photography and memory, and stories that are deeply rooted in the Uptown community.
More information here.