Push Pull

2021

Faheem Majeed

(In Collaboration with Carrie Hanson, Damon Green and Liviu Pasare)

Push Pull is a series of photographs, videos, and performances that explore the tension, labor, and beauty of Majeed’s role as an arts administrator within culturally specific institutions. The performance—choreographed by Carrie Hanson and performed by Damon Green—draws directly from Majeed’s experience as former director and curator of the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC). Set against Majeed’s graphite frottage of the SSCAC’s 1890s Georgian Revival façade, the choreography animates the surface, revealing the physical and emotional rhythm of the cultural worker—one who must honor tradition while pushing a community toward the future.

The work has been presented in multiple forms and contexts, including a live performance at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where it was reimagined for an international audience. There, the dialogue between body, architecture, and history extended beyond the SSCAC to consider broader questions of preservation, translation, and movement across cultural and geographic borders.

Founded in 1941 in Chicago, Illinois, the South Side Community Art Center emerged in response to the Great Depression. Serving primarily the African American community, SSCAC provided teaching jobs, public commissions, and a safe space for Black artists to create and exhibit their work. Over the decades, it has nurtured generations of artists, including Charles White, Gordon Parks, Nat King Cole, Margaret Burroughs, Richard Barthé, Elizabeth Catlett, members of AfriCOBRA, Kerry James Marshall, and Theaster Gates.

Push Pull at O’Hare International Airport

Push Pull at Centre Pompidou