Kevin Beasley in conversation with Daphne Brooks and Jace Clayton

In his exhibition A view of a landscape, Kevin Beasley examines and attempts to unravel power and history in the American South through the highly-mediated use of a 20th-century cotton gin motor from Alabama. For this program, Beasley invites writer and scholar Daphne Brooks and interdisciplinary artist Jace Clayton to discuss ways of understanding race, labor, and ancestry through an artistic lens.

Daphne Brooks is professor of African American Studies and Theater Studies at Yale University. She specializes in African American literary cultural performance studies, especially 19th-century and trans-Atlantic culture. Brooks has authored numerous articles on race, gender, performance, and popular music culture. She is currently working on a three-volume study of black women and popular music culture titled Subterranean Blues: Black Women Sound Modernity.

Jace Clayton is an artist and writer, also known for his work as DJ /rupture. Clayton uses an interdisciplinary approach to focus on how sound, memory, and public space interact, with an emphasis on low-income communities and the global South. His book Uproot: Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture was published in 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.