Steffani Jemison: Untitled Support Study (In Succession 2019)

 Steffani JemisonUntitled Support Study (In Succession 2019), 2020Digital print24 x 18 inchesEdition of 50 Steffani Jemison works with video, sound, performance, drawing, and sculpture to challenge established histories, knowledge hierarchies, and socio-political values focusing on Black vernacular culture. Employing tools borrowed from conceptual art, cinema, fiction writing, and improvisation, she uses personal narratives and historical archives to reframe the past and examine alternative ideologies of so-called “progress.” Untitled Support Study (In Succession 2019) relates to a series of videos by the artist that reference historical episodes from the early 20th century wherein athletic black figures were characterized as super-human after alleged attempts to escape, rescue, or steal. Jemison seeks to complicate this reading by capturing present-day imagery of disciplined movement practices that combine parkour, contact improvement, and acrobatics to foreground themes of agility, b