Name: An artist's unflinching look at racial violence
Uploaded: 2016-05-11T14:44:53Z
Duration: 4 min 9 s
Description: Conceptual artist and TED Fellow Sanford Biggers uses painting, sculpture, video and performance to spark challenging conversations about the history and trauma of black America. Join him as he details two compelling works and shares the motivation behind his art. "Only through more thoughtful dialogue about history and race can we evolve as individuals and society," Biggers says.

Sanford Biggers: An artist's unflinching look at racial violence

An artist's unflinching look at racial violence

Conceptual artist and TED Fellow Sanford Biggers uses painting, sculpture, video and performance to spark challenging conversations about the history and trauma of black America. Join him as he details two compelling works and shares the motivation behind his art. "Only through more thoughtful dialogue about history and race can we evolve as individuals and society," Biggers says.

Powerful art can open conversations that often remain buried, especially on difficult subjects like slavery and racial violence. A glass lotus seven feet across, with petals shaped as slave ships, invites viewers to see Black history as a shared, global legacy. Another work uses bullet-scarred African figures to memorialize victims of police violence. Through these haunting objects, art becomes a space for communities to confront pain, reflect together, and begin collective healing.