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Hannah Black: My Bodies

It’s not fun writing about Hannah Black’s work, because she is herself such an exceptional writer as well as being an artist (not that the two vocations are necessarily separate things, Black has spoken about how she doesn’t view them as discrete categories). For My Bodies, Black used the results of a Google image search for CEOs to create a video that plays like a PowerPoint: each generic image of a suited man fades into the next. Samples of mainly African American women - including Rihanna, Beyonce and Aaliyah - singing “my body” play over the top; encouraging us to consider which bodies get to be visible, and have agency. (Maybe strangely, this piece always makes me think of the Nina Simone song, Ain't Got No, I Got Life).

  • Holly Connolly