Join us for an evening of films by multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Allison Janae Hamilton, followed by a conversation with scholar Imani Perry. Drawing on folklore, ecology, and the legacies of Black life, Hamilton explores the landscapes and mythologies of the Southern United States. After the screening, Hamilton and Perry will discuss storytelling, place, and how artists reckon with the South’s layered histories, complexities, and influence on American life.

ASL interpretation will be provided.

Allison Janae Hamilton is an artist and filmmaker whose cinematic work is defined by its haunting visual language, atmospheric world-building, and mythic engagement with the natural world. As a writer-director, she is deeply influenced by the rural American South: She was born in Kentucky, raised in Florida, and her maternal family’s farm and homestead lie in the flatlands of western Tennessee. Her films and immersive installations have been presented at major museums and film festivals, including the BlackStar Film Festival, and her film Wacissa was recently acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Hamilton was accepted into the Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program Development Track for her screenplay, “Floridaland,” as part of the 2026 Sundance Screenwriters Intensive Fellowship. Hamilton is a recent winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship and has also won the VIA Art Fund Production Grant and Creative Capital Award.

Imani Perry is the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Perry is the author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, which received the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the inaugural Inside Literary Prize, the only book award judged by incarcerated Americans. Her most recent book, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, was published in January of 2025 and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Perry has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Bitter Southerner, Harper's, and Harper’s Bazaar. Perry is a 2023 recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. She has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Pew Foundations. Prior to Harvard, she served on the faculties of Princeton University's Department of African American Studies and Rutgers Law School.