Dana Davenport is a Korean and Black American interdisciplinary artist shifting between installation, sculpture, video, and performance. Within Davenport’s practice, she addresses the complexities that surround interminority racism as a foundation for envisioning her own and the collective futurity of Black and Asian peoples.
Davenport began working with hair in 2017 when she was seeking a material that could speak to the tensions that she felt in being a Black and Korean woman. Leading with play and experimentation, Davenport began to utilize hair, a product overwhelmingly sold by Koreans to Black Americans, as a proxy for her body.
Her work considers the implications of the materials as they sit on the beauty supply shelf and how they are activated in the hands of Black folks through love and labor. These works redirect trauma while favoring the beauty and awe in Black and Asian communion, a movement that Davenport has yearned exposure to as a child.
“I lead with the naivety of my child self, the giddiness that I experience when walking into a beauty supply, and the sensory stimulation in arranging hair beads. In doing so, I’m creating a visual language around Black and Asian solidarity while turning to the beauty supply as my source of inspiration.”
Contact
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