Responding to the architecture and history of specific places, Ann Hamilton creates immersive, sensory installations to explore the power of communal exchanges and the representation of individuals and communities. At the Academy, she will discuss several recent works that elucidate fundamental aspects of her practice, with a special focus on her text concordances.

Language and text are central to Hamilton’s work, represented as tools that fuel our memory and imagination. With habitus, which reflects on the rich history of textiles—another focal point for the artist—visitors were invited to interact with large, circular panels of white fabric draped from the ceiling. They were accompanied by a collection of writing that explores the social and material vocabulary of textiles. With ONEEVERYONE, a public-art project installed in the Dell Medical School of the University of Texas at Austin, she investigates the relationship between photographer, camera, and subject. The project documents twenty-one-thousand people who have received or given care.