Kiyan Williams
Kiyan Williams first installed Reaching Towards Warmer Suns (2019) in Richmond, Virginia along the banks of the James River / Powhattan paralleling the Richmond Slave Trail. The unauthorized placement of the work caused its removal by public park officials months later. Like some of the formally enslaved African ancestors Williams commemorates, RTWS also migrated north to find a second home along the East River at Socrates Sculpture Park (on view until March 14, 2021). The theme of migration is foregrounded in the title, which references Richard Wright’s writing on the Great Migration. For their design in the second iteration of RTWS, Williams sourced soil from an African American burial ground in Queens, New York, laying in multicolored polished stones. The raised arms appear to reach up in defiance as they resiliently sway, dance, or protest. In Notes on Digging (video, 2020), Williams performs their way forward, using momentum found in reckoning with a history of chattel slavery.
Notes on Digging
"Notes on Digging," a video by Kiyan Wiliams, explores how connecting with the earth helps the artist recover from racialized and gendered violence.
Reaching Towards Warmer Suns (above)
Richmond, Virginia
2019 (installed by Williams and later removed by park officials)
Reaching Towards Warmer Suns (above)
Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York
2020 — March 14, 2021
Kiyan Williams
Video of Reaching Towards Warmer Suns installed at Socrates Sculpture Park.
Poem: ‘won't you celebrate with me’ by Lucille Clifton.
About Kiyan Williams
Kiyan Williams is a multidisciplinary artist from Newark, NJ who works fluidly across sculpture, performance, and video. Rooted in a process-driven practice, they draw on quotidian, unconventional materials and methods to create works that evoke the historical, political, and social forces that shape individual and collective bodies.
Williams earned a BA with honors from Stanford University and an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University. Their work has been exhibited at SculptureCenter, The Jewish Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Recess Art, and The Shed. They have given artist talks and lectures at the Hirshhorn Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Princeton University, Stanford University, Portland State University, The Guggenheim, and Pratt Institute. Williams’ work is in private and public collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.