October 6, 2015
Artist Tameka Norris offered a screening of her film, “Meka Jean: How She Got Good,” at the Coleman Center for the Arts’ downtown Pop Start space. The film originally premiered in 2014 at Prospect 3, the international art biennial in New Orleans. It chronicles Norris’ eponymous character, Meka Jean, as she navigates her own artistic, social, cultural, and familial identities while moving between the international art world and her family home in rapidly gentrifying New Orleans.
Area residents joined the artist for a meal from Larkin’s Deli, and a casual viewing. The screening at the CCA concluded with a discussion in which the audience supported the artist in exploring her issues with death, representation, and self-acceptance. The group shared personal stories inspired by the viewing. This intimate and supportive conversation paved the way for further collaboration between Norris, the Sumter community, and the CCA that will unfold in the following years.
Tameka Norris received a B.A. in art from the University of California Los Angeles in 2012 and an M.F.A. from Yale School of Art in 2012. Her work has been shown at Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Third Streaming Gallery, New York, and in Prospect New Orleans biennials 1.5, 2 and 3. In 2013 Norris was listed as one of “24 artists to Watch” by Modern Painters Magazine. She is represented by the Lombard Freid gallery in New York City.
Support for this program was provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, ArtPlace America, the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Daniel Foundation of Alabama, and the generous contributions of our individual supporters.