An Alterable Terrian
An Alterable Terrian
Accompanying Rhea Dillon’s solo Art Now exhibition at Tate Britain, An Alterable Terrain, this book showcases Dillon’s poetically insightful work. It features Dillon’s poetry, alongside new writings and reprinted extracts by her and other contributors, and illustrations of the exhibition and individual works.
The exhibition brings together Dillon’s new and existing sculptures as a conceptual fragmentation of a Black woman’s body. It examines material histories, theories of minimalism and abstraction, and Black feminist epistemologies to evoke elements of an amorphous body, including the eyes, mouth, soul and hands. Viewed together, these disparate elements underline the foundational role Black women’s physical, reproductive, and intellectual labour has played in the history of the British Empire.
This publication illuminates the links between historical sites of dispossession and contemporaneous sites of exploitation and overwork. It underlines how structures of power – including colonialism, racial capitalism, and patriarchy – have an enduring presence in the production of Caribbean and British identities. A poetic assemblage of responses to colonialism, patriarchy, and Black female labour.
Created in close collaboration with the artist, the book also features contributions from Patricia Noxolo, Barbara Ferland, Zoé Samudzi, Françoise Vergès, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Katherine McKittrick, Martine Syms, and Daniella Rose King (Tate).