Lauren Woods

I am obsessed with history, the archive and how the larger concept of history relates to issues of power and social control. My fascination began at a very young age with the original PBS broadcast of the Eyes on the Prize series. In the comfort of my mother’s lap, I learned about the Civil Rights Movement. A defining moment in my identity construction, finally, I had a context for the scar that still remains, even to this day, on my mother’s right hand—a smooth aberration that I found comforting when I used to hold her hand. Despite all of my questions years prior, I could really began to understand the origins of the scar—the result of an elderly white man assaulting my mother as a child when she dared to board a bus before him—through this visual tapestry at the intersection of history and cinema—public television—public memory—public art. Somehow, I managed, despite the spectacle of violence, to take away something powerful… I begin here.