Say Her Name

Narrator: Jennifer Packer.

Jennifer Packer: The painting Say Her Name was kind of a turning point in terms of the way that I started to think about the decorative nature of the funerary bouquet and the decorative nature of painting. I was trying to reconcile this feeling of loss that I felt when Sandra Bland died. I wanted to come to terms with that loss through seeing a celebration of her life, like a sort of a final celebration, but I couldn’t. What I’ve been really interested in is withholding. That I don’t have access to interiority. I just have information and feeling and the ability to interpret.

Narrator: The exhibition’s title, The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing, explores a similar idea.

Jennifer Packer: The Eye is Not Satisfied with Seeing articulates this relationship to belief. I think we have all watched plenty of footage that has been arbitrated over. People argue that the visual evidence isn’t enough, that there’s context and detail that somehow we’re missing in the visual. And I’m interested in that kind of leap of faith that we take when we look at pictures or paintings, or video, or listen to sound.

Narrator: This audio is courtesy of Serpentine Gallery, London.