Centropy (2021)

On the occasion of the The Hugo Boss Prize 2020: Deana Lawson, Centropy exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, Deana Lawson has conceived this 20-minute film, which expands upon the personal histories and thematic structures that inflect the installation in the gallery. Also titled Centropy, the film is a meditative visual essay that encompasses interviews with individuals who have been formative to Lawson's life and work, archival footage, and evocations of the artist's process. It approaches from oblique angles topics including ancestral histories, Black ecologies, and the science of holography. Directed by Lawson with cinematography by Bradford Young, the film was produced by the filmmaking collective The Ummah Chroma under its banner, Ummah Chroma Creative Partners (UCCP).