Curry J. Hackett
Curry J. Hackett is an award-winning transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator.
Curry has taught architecture at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville School of Architecture, Howard University, City College of New York Spitzer School of Architecture, Carleton University Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, and Yale School of Architecture.
His ongoing research project, Drylongso, explores the complex relationships between Black southern culture, geography, and land. This project has been awarded research funding by the Graham Foundation, Washington Project of the Arts Wherewithal Grant Program, Journal of Architecture Education’s inaugural fellowship, and exhibited in a solo installation at theTwelve gallery.
In 2022, he was named a finalist for the internationally-recognized Wheelwright Prize, presented by the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Work Title: Ugly Beauties: An Other Black Exology, 2024
Medium: Text-to-Video (Sora by Open AI)
Video Length: 55 seconds
Keywords: American South, Black ecology, Afrosurrealism
Work Description
Ugly Beauties: An Other Black Ecology is an animated sequel to the two-dimensional work of the same name—a 50-foot long, AI-generated collage depicting scene of Black folks interacting with urban plants, initially on display as a public art installation in downtown Brooklyn. The weeds that occupy our gardens and vacant lots are also an apt metaphor for the ways those knowledges are peripheralized to further narratives of the Black landscape of one primarily of exoticness, “resilience”, and enslavement.
o-dimensional work of the same name—a 50-foot long, AI-generated collage depicting scene of Black folks interacting with urban plants, initially on display as a public art installation in downtown Brooklyn. The weeds that occupy our gardens and vacant lots are also an apt metaphor for the ways those knowledges are peripheralized to further narratives of the Black landscape of one primarily of exoticness, “resilience”, and enslavement.