This is the first publication on the genre-defying practice of Terence Nance (born 1982), the filmmaker famed for An Oversimplification of Her Beauty and Random Acts of Flyness. Tracing his work in film, video, television, sound and performance from 2012 to 2022, the volume pays tribute to the community Nance cultivated in the heady days of early- to mid-2000s Brooklyn. The role of community figures centrally in Nance’s work, as evinced through his frequent collaborations with friends and family. Discarding the conventions of cinema, Nance opts for narrative forms that stretch the bounds of temporality and embrace Black spiritual and ancestral practices; he regards his work as part of an ongoing lineage of artists who labor to make visible these influences. Terence Nance: Swarm highlights the interdisciplinary nature of Nance’s practice by focusing on his immersive environments—both old and new—many of which have been reconstructed from earlier films.

Publisher

BlackStar Projects & Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania 

Edited by

Maori Karmael Holmes, Kavita Rajanna.

Text by

Taylor Renee Aldridge, John L. Jackson, Jr., Ra Malika Imhotep, Lynnée Denise, Brontë Velez, Maori Karmael Holmes, James Bartlett, Elissa Blount Moorhead, Darius Clark Monroe, Ja'Tovia Gary, Shawn Peters, Bradford Young.

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Terence Nance: Swarm

7 x 9.75 in.

ISBN 9780884541578

225 pages

2023