March 7 to April 1, 2008

Artist: Kerry Stuart Coppin
Artist Talk: Friday, March 7, 6-7 pm
Reception: Friday, March 7, 6-9 pm

Kerry Stuart Coppin's ambition is to produce provocative photographic interpretations that elaborate and celebrate positive aspects of the Black community experience. He is particularly interested in the urban Black African experience. He is convinced (in the words of bell hooks) that ”the lives of black people are complex, and are therefore worthy of sophisticated critical analysis and reflection...” He is trying to use photography as a tool, an instrument, to “change the way we as Black people look at ourselves and the world...” and he hopes through his work to contribute to our sense of a world community; to help “create a world where Blackness, and Black people, can be looked upon with open eyes...”

Coppin is interested to pursue visual interpretation of the Black urban experience in Africa, as it may be used to shape a reinterpretation of our understanding of the African continent and its rich potential. We may choose to allow language or allow culture, national borders, and economic and political systems of government, to separate and alienate us, or, we can choose to use all the systems of contemporary society/post-modern world, including systems of art, as tools to forge unions between the many diverse and disparate communities of African descent in the New World, and around the globe.

Coppin is an Associate Professor of Visual Art and Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, RI.  His photography has been exhibited in over 45 solo and 90 group exhibitions since 2000. His work is in 31 permanent Collections including the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, Art Institute of Chicago, Biblioteque Nationale de France, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museo Casa de Africa Cuba, and the W. African Research Center, Senegal.

CO-SPONSORED by the Diversity Center and the Office for Academic Affairs