BLACK MEME


Legacy Russell is a writer and curator whose ongoing academic work and research focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual.

Artist Bio

BLACK MEME identifies points across history—beginning in the 1900s and traveling through to the 21st century—that have paved the way for the notion of the “meme” as we understand it today, setting the stage for the construct of digital virality. Throughout her research-based project, Legacy Russell defines “Black meme” through the notion of “the copying and transmission of blackness-as-memetic-material.” Citing sources across a wide gamut of archival media, the project explores the impact of Blackness, Black life, and Black social death on contemporary conceptions of virality borne in the age of the Internet.


Award Year
2021
Status

In Progress


2021 Artist Retreat Presentation

Black queer femme with hair tied back at the nape of her neck wearing a yellow and white floral dress with black trim looks sideways at the camera with chin tilted up.

Legacy Russell

Brooklyn, NY

Legacy Russell is a writer and curator whose ongoing academic work and research focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Her first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020, Verso Books), is a cyberfeminist call to action that positions error as an opportunity for revolution, exploring the relationship between gender, technology, and identity. She is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, and a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow.

Photo: Daniel Dorsa.