WEBVTT

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-[Hank] This is nice.

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-[Rujeko] Mm-hm.

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So are these negatives all
your grandfather's photographs?

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-Yeah, and I haven't
seen them, actually.

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It's kind of
awesome just to, like,

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open up a box and...

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find these things.

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These...

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This is one of the
first shoots I was ever on.

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-[Rujeko] Oh, wow.

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-[Hank] These are photographs
from my mom's archive.

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This is a picture I've
used a lot in my work.

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-[Rujeko]Mm-hm.

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-[Hank] They're being
baptized in the pool.

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-You see the horns here and...

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-[Rujeko] Mm-hm.

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-[Hank] This woman here.

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Look, this is so powerful.

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-[Rujeko] Mm-hm.

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-The two things that I remember
people saying to me as early as

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three or four years old are
"You ask too many questions"

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and "You're not supposed
to stare at people."

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♪playful oscillating synths♪

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[chuckling] Most of my work is
some combination of the two.

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Photography was a
reason to stare.

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All of my work is
about framing and context,

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and about how, depending
on where you're standing,

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it really shapes your
perspective of the truth,

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of reality, and
what's important.

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♪♪♪

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Along with photography, I have
to work in different mediums.

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♪♪♪

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I have to try different ways to
look at something that we might

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think that we've already
looked at a thousand times.

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♪arpeggiated synth music♪

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I was reading Roland
Barthes' book 'Camera Lucida,'

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where he talks
about the punctum.

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His perspective of the punctum
is the thing that pierces you,

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the thing that sticks
with you in the photograph.

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When I look at this photograph
of a Harlem Globetrotter

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standing in front of
the Statue of Liberty,

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the punctum for me was this arm.

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♪♪♪

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I like to balance the
spectacle element of sports

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with the context of
history and politics.

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During my research, I was
reading Ernest Cole's landmark book

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'House of Bondage.'

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He, as a black photographer,
traveled all over South Africa

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documenting the
horrors of apartheid,

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and then smuggled these
images out of the country.

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♪♪♪

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The specific image of a lineup
of nude miners with their arms

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up being strip-searched
really struck me.

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I had seen it many times
before, but I recognized,

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with a critical eye, that I felt
often guilty looking at this

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picture because I was
always gawking at their bodies.

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My looking at it was
reinforcing the oppression.

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♪♪♪

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I wanted to remake that
image as a sculpture,

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so I titled it Raise Up.

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I want to give viewers a chance
to walk around and look up and

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look over,

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to just try to look at
these men with dignity.

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♪♪♪

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Just about six months
after I made that sculpture,

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halfway across the world
in Ferguson, Missouri,

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the phrase "Hands Up,
Don't Shoot" became popular

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after the murder of Mike Brown.

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-[crowd] [chanting]
Hands up, don't shoot!

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-[Hank VO] When I finally
exhibited this work in the

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United States,

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people called it "the
Hands Up, Don't Shoot piece."

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♪♪♪

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I see everything as connected,
so if I'm making work about

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coal miners or Ferguson

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or basketball,

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frankly, a lot of the bodies are
connected through this history

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of oppression.

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-[Hank] Zoom in, and then
you can just cycle through the

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pages.

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Mm-hm.

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I'm so glad that we chose the
3D-scan real hands for this

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instead of digitally-made hands.

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-[Sam Giarratani] I wanna
show you the finger.

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They take the 3D print, and
then they coat it with this wax,

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so that it can
stick to the ceramic.

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And that level of texture is
gonna come across in the bronze.

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-[Rujeko] Yes, that is crazy.

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-[Sam] Yeah.

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-[Rujeko] They look good.

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-And so, do you know
what that piece is?

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-[Sam] No, this is
actually just a sample.

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-[Rujeko] Sample
for, like, the patina?

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-[Sam] Yeah.

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-[Hank] This is so nuts
imagining how they broke the

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sculpture into 650 pieces...

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-[Sam] Mm-hm.

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-[Will] Mm-hm.

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-[Hank] And how many
people are working on this one.

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-[Sam] Yeah, it's
all hands on deck.

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-The whole foundry.

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-[Rujeko] Great.

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-Yeah, we break ground on
Coretta Scott King's birthday,

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and then...

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it debuts on MLK Day.

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-[Rujeko] Mm-hm.

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-And so the eight
months in between,

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everything's gotta get done.

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♪sparse ethereal music♪

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-[Hank VO] A few years ago, I
was invited to submit a proposal

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for the Boston Common –

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an installation in memorial
to Coretta Scott King

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and Martin Luther King.

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I didn't really know at the time
that two of the most prominent

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civil rights leaders from the
South actually met and fell in

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love in Boston.

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The fact that their love
would actually ripple out

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in so many ways from that first
meeting was really profound

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for me.

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I wanted to make a sculpture
that was inspired by their

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intimacy that's
larger than life.

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I found a picture of
them at the award ceremony

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for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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The punctum of
the photograph --

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the part that I was struck by --

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was the way that their arms
were wrapped around each other.

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His weight was resting on her.

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The fact that we speak so much
about Martin Luther King without

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acknowledging or celebrating
Coretta Scott King was something

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that was important to me, as
well as everyone involved.

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There was tension, you know,
in me and also my collaborators

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about what does it mean to not
include their faces and other

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body parts?

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But really, when I think about
Martin Luther King and

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Coretta Scott King, I have a feeling.

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It's not the pictures I've
seen, it's a sense in my heart.

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There is a poetry in these
interlocking arms and this

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sculpture that people will go
inside of

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and replicate that gesture.

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We wanted the sculpture to
actually get to the heart of it.

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-[Dr. Deborah Willis]:We always talk about
the hidden

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archive of Black history that's

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not hidden but it's there,
and it's really the...

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the researcher who has
to reimagine the archive.

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When I think about, you
know, Aunt Cora's quilts...

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-[Hank] I wonder if that's part
of the inspiration for me --

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just a lot of the work that
I do is always very much in

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conversation subconsciously
with the work you're doing.

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-[Deb VO] I'm Deb Willis.

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I'm a photographer, a professor.

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I teach at New York University
Tisch School of the Arts,

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chair of the
photography program there.

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♪ethereal synth music♪

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I'm a writer about photography.

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♪♪♪

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As a child, Hank was
fascinated with photographs.

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He would go into the
photographic album,

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ask my mother, "Why is
this photograph in color?

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And why is this in
black and white?"

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And he would change the
pages to tell his own story.

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At that time, I worked for the
Schomburg Center of Research in

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Black Culture as a
photo specialist/archivist.

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After school,

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I would pick him
up during my break,

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take him to work with me.

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He always wanted to know,

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"Why do you have photographs
of people we don't know...

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[laughs] in our house?"

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And I said, "Because we
need to know the stories

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of the people in the image."

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-[Hank VO] As a child,
with my mother's work,

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I didn't really
understand what she was doing.

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Now, I understand that her
work, along with many others',

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was really critical in building
and expanding the field of

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photography, and
especially Black photography.

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Looking at the way that
Hank grew up in a professional

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archive of a library but
also in the family archive

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made him curious about how to
create a narrative about Black life.

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♪erratic synth music♪

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What I took from
photography was incredible

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knowledge and experience of how
to look critically at the world,

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at myself.

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Because I've always been
reaching to the past and trying

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to connect with it,

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sometimes the closest
I could get to history

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is the photographic document.

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♪ethereal synth music♪

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There's something really
just beautiful about actually

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beginning to see the scale now
that there is over 500 pieces

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welded together.

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It's like, it's happening!

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I would estimate that there
are at least a thousand people

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who've had to work on it
in some way, shape, or form.

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♪♪♪

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Engineers, architects,
and the community boards...

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and then getting it
shipped across the country.

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♪sparse synth music♪

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The sculpture is
about the Kings,

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but it also is
really imbued with

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the care, consideration,
passion, and talent of so many

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other people.

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-[Roberto Morales VO] We're working
on something historic.

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Martin Luther King, he
talked for the people like me.

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♪uplifting synth music♪

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-[Sam] We wanted to make sure
that we were really thinking

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about all different kinds
of people

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coming into the sculpture.

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We wanted to make sure
wheelchairs can go inside.

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We want people to
come up and touch,

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so the patina lends
itself to being touched.

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-[Jonathan] The story of Martin and
Coretta was inspirational,

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and also looking at the other 65
heroes of the local

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Boston Civil Rights Movement,

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honoring those
names in the plaza,

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and pushing forward a new
narrative of what it means to be

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in the city of Boston.

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-[crowd] Ten,
nine, eight, seven,

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six, five, four, three,

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two, one!

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[cheers and applause]

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♪tender synth music♪

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-[Hank VO] There are so many
monuments to heroes of war,

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and there are not very many
to heroes of nonviolence.

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I'd like to believe that this is
just the beginning of a new way

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of thinking about how
public space can be viewed,

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and how we reflect on the past
with care and concern for the future.

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I want to make work that really
gives people a sense of pride

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and connection, that's going to
mean something to people beyond

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my circle, beyond my world,
and beyond this lifetime.

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♪ ethereal ambient music ♪