Public Program

  • Notes on Territory: Meditation 1
  • GRANTEE
    Anna Martine Whitehead
    GRANT YEAR
    2019

Anna Martine Whitehead, Notes on Territory: Meditation 1, 2019, Chicago. Courtesy the artist.

Notes on Territory brings together an array of research modalities to address the dialectical concerns: What is the prison?; and What is the nature of freedom? Territory considers architectures, site plans, urbanisms and spatial interventions to explore the rich tradition of oppressed peoples' liberation practices. From didactic lecture and dance theater to interactive sound installation, Territory presents varying points of entry to engage with its themes. At its core, the work offers movement as research, in kinship with transdisciplinary artist-philosophers such as Torkwase Dyson, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Renée Green; transdisciplinary scholars such as Simone Browne, Michelle M. Wright, and Katherine McKittrick; and freedom dreamer Harriet Jacobs.

Anna Martine Whitehead received her MFA in social practice from California College of the Arts and has been presented by the San José Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Velocity Dance Center, AUNTS, Pieter, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and CounterPULSE. She has worked closely with Onye Ozuzu, Jefferson Pinder, taisha paggett, Every house has a door, Keith Hennessy, BodyCartography Project, Julien Prévieux, and the Prison + Neighborhood Art Project, among others. Whitehead has written for Art21, C Magazine, frieze, and Art Practical; and contributed to Meanings and Makings of Queer Dance (Oxford, 2017). She has been supported by Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and 3Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, Pivot Arts, University of Michigan,  Djerassi, Links Hall, and High Concept Labs. Whitehead is the author of TREASURE | My Black Rupture (AK Press, 2016). She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.