We Imagine Past the Sky: The Transnational Circulation of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) as a Catalyst for Interdisciplinary Art and Political Reimagining Across Paris
A lecture by Asha Iman Veal, organized by Noit Banai, Professor of Diaspora Aesthetics, Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies, and Rio Usui, MA Critical Studies.
In A Raisin in the Sun (1959) Chicago-born playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965) introduced audiences to the Youngers, a fictional Black family in Chicago whose late patriarch has left behind a life insurance policy that the family can use to purchase a home and enter the American middle class. Many challenges block this family’s path, and the four adult Youngers debate their options for self-determination within a race-biased country, particularly whether to move to an affordable yet segregated neighborhood where they will not be welcome. Soon after the debut of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, Hansberry’s seminal work was translated into thirty languages and has been an underrecognized global phenomenon ever since.
Several scholars have studied and written biographical texts on Hansberry and her work, particularly gender and African American studies professor Dr. Imani Perry (Harvard). Polish scholar of African American literature Dr. Katarzyna Jakubiak (Millersville University) and German scholar of American literature Dr. Astrid Haas (University of Bergen) have respectively focused on a niche of Central European productions in the 1960s. Yet besides a US/Sweden/South Africa performance collaboration at Georgetown University’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics (2017), few public projects have presented on the interconnectedness and aesthetics of the play’s global history beyond a single region—or its embrace as an arts-based format for transcultural dialogues on justice across the world.
Asha Iman Veal is a curator and professor of interdisciplinary contemporary art (School of the Art Institute of Chicago), focused on contemporary photography, moving-image, and cross diasporic projects. She began working in the art and culture field in 2004 in New York City.
Asha Iman’s recent large-scale exhibitions "LOVE: Still Not the Lesser" (MoCP Chicago 2023) and "Beautiful Diaspora / You Are Not the Lesser Part" (MoCP Chicago 2022) brought together cross-diasporic conversations between global artists Xyza Cruz Bacani, Widline Cadet, Cog•nate Collective, Sunil Gupta, Kelvin Haizel, Ngadi Smart, and more; and celebrations of love and desire by Jorian Charlton, Jess T. Dugan, and Mous Lamrabat, among others. Her Chicago Architecture Biennial 2021 partner program and exhibition "RAISIN (vol. 1)" commissioned several new artworks and generated community among more than 35 global artists, including Işıl Eğrikavuk, Amanda Williams, and Tintin Wulia. She has separately organized and worked on a number of projects and/or arts research in New York, Tokyo, Havana, Vietnam, Edinburgh, Darby/London, Berlin, Juárez, and Chicago; and held staff roles in New York and Chicago.
Asha Iman is frequently invited as a distinguished guest critic and jury reviewer for national and international artist awards and residencies, including the American Academy in Rome / Terra Foundation Affiliated Fellowship, Visual Studies Workshop NY, East African Photography Awards, Earth Photo Award by Forestry England and the Royal Geographical Society, University of Chicago Arts + Public Life, 3Arts Chicago, Arts Work Fund Chicago, HARPO Foundation, and more. Veal is a frequent guest lecturer and panelist for international cultural institutions such as GRAIN Projects UK, Pakhuis de Zwijger Amsterdam, Istituto Italiano di Cultura Chicago, Humanity In Action – Netherlands, San Diego State University, Midwest Art Historical Society, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, and more.
https://ashaveal.github.io/bio/
https://curatorsintl.org/collaborators/22433-asha-iman-veal