“Meet the Artist” with Marcus Morris (Woodstock AIR)
“On Thursday, July 23, we welcome Marcus Morris to “Meet the Artist” night at CPW. Morris will present his ongoing project, Elegance Is Refusal, which reimagines Beloved by Toni Morrison as a queer narrative set in Appalachian Ohio. Elegance, to Morris, a feminine of ‘cool,’ long associated with Black culture, considers Black queer and femme identity as a source of power and refusal in a White supremacist patriarchal capitalist system. Elegance Is Refusal comes from the editor Diana Vreeland, who says, “Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.”
The project employs theatrical costuming to set the stage of a Reconstruction-era landscape. Working with Xavier Cruz, cast to play Morris’s younger self, he engages race, gender, sexuality, history, class, and the promise of liberty via queer mothering and the journey to “The Clearing” in Beloved. This series of images and video is made near land his family has occupied in Ohio since being emancipated in the early 19th century. Utilizing medium and large format analog captures as well as digital photography and video, Morris pursues an expansive vision for the project. It is an offering to the invisible Black, queer and Appalachian people who are his ancestors and ghosts. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s YouTube page at 6pm.”
Loading Map....
