Homework 1.2. Allison Janae Hamilton.

January 30, 2018

Homework 1.2. Allison Janae Hamilton.

Allison Janae Hamilton. The March, 2014, from the series Kingdom of the Marvelous.

Born in Kentucky in 1984 and raised in rural Florida and Tennessee, Allison Janae Hamilton draws a great deal of inspiration from her personal and cultural connections to landscape and nature within her work. Ms. Hamilton works across multiple mediums, including sculpture, installations, photography, videography, and various soundscapes, often layering several of these elements to create immersive pieces that transport the viewer back to metaphorical scenes of the artist's past. These scenes heavily reference both the natural landscape and the sociocultural concepts of the American rural south, with influences that range from folktales, social and environmental issues, Baptist hymns, and Ms. Hamilton's own memories of where and how she grew up.

I had the wonderful opportunity to see one of Ms. Hamilton's exhibitions, 'Foresta,' at the Studio Museum in Harlem this past winter, and the immersive space that she created was simultaneously both incredibly soothing and eerily disquieting. Viewers were invited to walk to the center of a room by way of a small roped-off path that resembled a dock, where they were then surrounded by animal forms and birch tree branches. Video of forest-scenes was projected onto the walls of the room, and a natural soundscape was filtered throughout the space. Viewers were also invited, if they so wished, to dial a number that was provided on the label of the exhibition; the voice at the other end of the line provided an explanation of the space, and of some of Ms. Hamilton's motivations for creating it.

Technology such as videography, light, and sound are simply singular elements in Ms. Hamilton's larger immersive works, mediums like any other that she utilizes in order to articulate the powerful messages that she projects through the spaces that she creates. However, through her delicate and poignant use of these modern tools, Ms. Hamilton illustrates how we can creatively and elegantly weave digital and technological elements together with traditional media and themes to create truly modern pieces that speak to our complete experiences as artists, and as people.