Patricia Ekpo, in conversation with Isaiah Madison, will bring together Lacanian understandings of psychosis and Afropessimist understandings of antiblackness to think through the illuminatory possibilities of artistic production towards revolutionary ends.

This talk will bring together Lacanian understandings of psychosis and Afropessimist understandings of antiblackness to think through the illuminatory possibilities of artistic production towards revolutionary ends. Using psychosis (marked separation from the hegemonic social order) at the individual, clinical, and structural level as a framework, we are able to understand the place of blackness as both outside of and productive of the social and symbolic order. With this understanding, the talk will turn to Charles Burnett’s 1978 film Killer of Sheep and discuss its non-narrative and spatial strategies of disorganization to understand what Jared Sexton terms “creation ex nihilo,” a mode of creation cultivated by the process of separation and the opening up of possibilities of relation through an affirmation of nothingness.

Moderated and organized by Isaiah Madison 

The Arts Platform Fall 2022 theme is Staging a Revolution: Black Arts Now which explores the relationship between artistic expression, social justice, and politics during the contemporary Black arts movement that has exploded over the last decade. As such, we welcome presentations by artists, activists, curators, scholars, and other practitioners who are working toward and reimagining racial justice within the arts industries. While the course was born out of this boom in Black theater and arts, it is also interested in coalition-building across different identities and communities.

Hosted by Lang staff and faculty from the Department of The Arts at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. All events are free and open to the public, but prior registration is required.

Zoom link will be sent in advance of the event.