Denniston Hill and the Dedalus Foundation present a conversation between Autumn Knight, whose work is interested in Black interiority in relation to coerced public spectacle and Nana Adusei-Poku, a Ghanian-German scholar whose current work focuses on cultural shifts and afro-pessimist aesthetics in Black Cultures.

The conversation is inspired by Knight’s new participatory performance series called Sanity TV, which is a fictional talk show that investigates the flexible boundaries of identity and psyche. Knight and Adusei-Poku will speak on the evolution of Sanity TV, and the influence of Harlem. Questions of the historical construction of norms in relationship to colonialism and gender as well as the still precarious position of Black subjects and subjectivities will be addressed. This conversation will explore themes of normativity, racialization, and performance as a space to push the boundaries between the “normal” and the “insane,” the self and the other, the pessimistic and the hopeful.

Sanity TV is presented as four episodes over the course of the Studio Museum Harlem Artists in Residence exhibition We Go as They, September 14 – January 7.