Beginning with The Birmingham Project photographs and the video work 9.15.63 (2012), which pay homage to the six young African Americans killed on September 15, 1963, in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and its violent aftermath, Dawoud Bey has made an imaginative and resonant engagement with aspects of African American history the subject of his work. Night Coming Tenderly, Black (2017) reimagined the path of fugitivity along the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Ohio by formerly enslaved African Americans, and In This Here Place (2019) and the three- channel video Evergreen (2021) look at the landscape of slavery in Louisiana along the west bank of the Mississippi River. In each of these bodies of work Bey seeks to place African American history at the center of the American historical narrative.
The Historic New Orleans Collection is hosting a reception immediately following the lecture in the Tricentennial Wing at 520 Royal Street in the French Quarter. Bey’s exhibition, “In This Here Place,” will be open for viewing. In the exhibit, Bey visits Louisiana plantation landscapes that were witness to slavery-era violence. The work includes large-format black-and- white photographs and “Evergreen,” a multimedia installation accompanied by music performed by Imani Uzari. Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be served.