IDENTIFY: Sheldon Scott

November 5, 2016
5:30 p.m.
Courtyard & Great Hall

Sheldon Scott presents Precious in Da Wadah, A Portrait of the Geechee as part of the museum's IDENTIFY series.  The artist's commissioned performance explores techniques enslaved Africans used to produce rice in the coastal region of South Carolina.  The performance challenges the concept of European technology as the basis of American agriculture, mercantilism, and financial prowess while highlighting the ingenuity of rice cultivation by the Gullah/Geechee people.  Scott also examines the advent of rice as a cash crop and the commodification of the black body.

Artist's Statement

I work in performance, sculpture, spoken narrative, photography, ephemera, immersive installation, and written word.  My work surveys the intersection of race, economics, and sexuality with a critical lens on the construction of black masculinity, while assessing the social taxes levied on black bodies and psyches.  These portraits are sourced from psychological introspection and physical commentary that offers biography and identity to challenge not only what we do, but why we do.

As a body of work that carries many voices through multiple media, I seek understanding of identities of race, sexuality, and economics with the use of visual metaphor.