Bowen’s autoethnographic art deconstructs the historical record to reveal the racialized undertones of cultural identity in North America

This black-on-black volume brings together over 20 years of multimedia work by Montreal-based artist Deanna Bowen (born 1969), whose commitment to the excavation and recontextualization of colonial legacies?particularly those that implicate her family history and the Black diaspora in North America?makes her artworks urgent and vital, both in Canada and abroad.

Bowen first became known for her single-channel video works exploring issues of family, race, gender and sexuality, including milk-fed (1997) and Deutschland (2000). Working primarily with photography?both rediscovered and new, but also video, documentary film, sound, performance, publishing, found objects and installation art?Bowen offers us a rereading of white historical and archival facts. This volume introduces her work for a broader audience.