Black Body (1992)

Black Body is a harsh and compelling meditation on the contradictory values assigned to black bodies in American culture they exist as both desired and feared abject and powerful The black body is a body whose surface reflects projected fears and repressed desires as such it exists as a site of ideological struggle a surface which is simultaneously eroticized and denegrated With nightmarish narratives and loaded terms hovering over an image of a naked torso bound with wire Harris shows how these contradictory values continue to cripple and contort the selfimage of blacks The video conveys a powerful sense of confusion and trauma the problem of inhabiting a body that is a cultural taboo