Thornton Dial, Stars of Everything, 2004 (detail)

Talk

Curator talk: Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers

In Conversation

Wednesday 19 April 2023 6.30 - 7.30pm

The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts

£10 / £6 conc

Friends of the RA book first

Join now

Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers

Go to the exhibition

Discover the exceptional works by Black artists from the American South, in this conversation with exhibition curator Raina Lampkins-Fielder and Bonnie Greer.

In this talk, Raina Lampkins-Fielder, Curator at the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, talks to Bonnie Greer about the artists featured in the exhibition Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers and introduces their work.

This discussion explores the unique African American artistic traditions and methods of visual storytelling found in the Southeastern United States, and places the artists featured in the exhibition into the canon of American art history.

Lampkins-Fielder and Greer will talk about the subjects of the works in Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers, which reflect the difficult history of the American South and global themes such as inequality and sense of place. She will also explore the significance of the use of recycled materials by many of the artists featured in the exhibition and explain the context of the ‘Yard Show’ – a deeply rooted Southern tradition.

Raina Lampkins-Fielder is a curator for the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. She has worked for over 20 years in museums and cultural institutions as a curator and cultural programmer, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Bonnie Greer OBE, FRSL, is an African-American-British award-winning playwright, novelist, critic and broadcaster. She is the author of a biography of Langston Hugues and novels including Hanging by Her Teeth and Entropy. Her plays have been broadcast over the BBC including Marilyn And Ella which had a brief West End run. She is a regular columnist for The New European, a contributor to the RA Magazine and has appeared as a panellist on Mastermind, Question Time and Sky Art’s Discovering film series. She has served on the boards of leading arts organisations including the Royal Opera House, the Serpentine Gallery, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and held the Deputy Chairmanship of the British Museum. She is a direct descendant of enslaved Africans, with roots in the Southern United States, where the Souls Grown Deep Foundation is based.