Al-An deSouza (they/them) renders photo-media, installation, text and performance works as staging grounds for historical memory and its legacies within the present. Works draw upon public and familial archives, remaking them through strategies of fabulation, humor, and (mis)translation. deSouza’s work has been shown extensively in the US and internationally, including at the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, Guangzhou Triennale, China, and the Pompidou Centre, Paris. 

deSouza’s recent book How Art Can Be Thought (Duke University Press, 2018) examines art pedagogy and critique practices, and how some of the most common terms used to discuss art may be adapted to new artistic and social challenges. Ark of Martyrs (Sming Sming Books, March 2020) is a polyphonic, dysphoric replacement of Joseph Conrad’s infamous Heart of Darkness. deSouza is Professor of Art Practice at University of California, Berkeley, and is represented by Talwar Gallery, NY and New Delhi.

deSouza will read from their work beginning at 5:30 pm. Conversation and a reception to follow.