George Lewis, Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow Lecture 2016

George Lewis talks about his practice as an interdisciplinary artist, composer and musicologist, and how this practice is rooted in his interests in Oral history and Ethnography. Lewis also speaks about the importance of site specificity for him as an artist, whether it is working with the toilet tap and water industries of Houston to create collaborative installation work, or looking at the power dynamics between the San Diego Arts and Culture Commission and the Metropolitan Waste Water District. Lewis then goes on to talk about his work with audio and sound installation, drawing upon ideas of cultural fluency to create vivid portraits of rural southern life among African Americans during the depression, the Great Migration to the urban North, and the troubled racial history of the United States.