Iman Person
Iman Person is a first-generation Jamaican-American artist and cultural anthropologist whose research explores the intersections of Black and Indigenous technologies, and their connections to ritual, the land, language, and cosmic time. Her work goes beyond traditional Western views of technology to offer a somatic examination of cultural diasporas within the Americas and the Caribbean. In her practice, she sees the body as deeply connected to the elements, with her recent works focusing on air and ether as points of convergence for exploring collective histories, migration, and diasporic memory. Using Africana cosmologies and personal experience, Iman channels speculative visions of Black futurity through intuitive writing, video, real-time data, experimental sound, sensory ethnography, and object-making to shape unexplored ideas concerning living archives and sovereignty while navigating the delicate terrain occurring at the edges of multiple worlds.
Residency: Getty PST ART 2024 X UCLA Art|Sci Center
Statement
The archives that I am currently incorporating into the work are audio are collections from prominent Caribbean linguists, narrations and reflections of the mass West Indian migration into England during 1945- 1960, lyrical prose (both self-written and found), ethnobotany and its relationship to colonial narratives in Jamaica, as well as musical excerpts of Jamaica’s sonic journey from Kuminia to present day. This project delves into sound at the juncture of Blackness and technology through codified languages that have emerged through Jamaican Patois, West Indian Creole, and other tribal communities.
Proposal
Waterlust, an ongoing series of site-specific installations, will follow lost water pathways through multiple campus venues.
Sept 9-13th, 2020 | Ars Electronica Telluric Vibrations, with Clinton Van Arnam, John Brumley, Kaitlin Bryson, Ivana Dama, Matea Friend, Maru García, Christoph Kilian, and Iman Person
Sound art, BioArt and immersive installations will be created to interact within UCLA’s Botanical Garden and its multiple species and sensory experiences. The garden will not function as a backdrop, but rather as an integrated, collaborative element, as the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden aims to engage people with the broad ways that plants are woven intricately into our lives and bring diverse communities together.
Further Involvement: UCLA Art|Sci Center
Apr 22nd, 2023 | Swept Away: A Love Letter to a Surrogate
Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate is a community-oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America. 65 Los Angeles County artists will present live performances over Earth Day Weekend: April 22 and 23, 2023 at the Santa Monica State Beach near the Annenberg Community Beach House on the Pacific Ocean.
Swept Away began in September 2022, when 65 Los Angeles County artists sent “love letters” to 65 artists on the East End of Long Island who responded with live performances on East Hampton’s Main Beach in September and October. In April 2023, the reverse will take place with 65 West Coast artists creating performances inspired by and in response to their East Coast counterparts’ letters. On April 22 and 23, 2023, we are pleased to present up to five simultaneous performances taking place during the hours of 8 am-12 pm and 4-10 pm on Santa Monica State Beach in front of Annenberg Community Beach House.
July 9th, 2022 | Symbiosis: Sculpting the Art of Living Together, presented by CultureHub
In Symbiosis, seven Los Angeles-based artists explore the relationship between distant mediums: art and biological sciences. These artists take inspiration from sources such as the ocean, animal exoskeletons, and the human body to challenge the way these disciplines intersect and unite through technology.
Featuring Iman Person’s New Air, a work which considers interspecies communication through the medium of air and video, and activates new channels for heightened human sensitivity to the environment.