Speak of Me as I Am (Venice, 2003), Black Like Me (The Aldrich Museum, 2005-06) and My Echo, My Shadow, and Me (Pace Gallery, 2006) are titles borrowed from other sources and yet they intimate a relation to the self—what it means to be “me”—a concept both internal and external to the self.

You’ve picked up on something very true: that it all comes back to me in the end. Because it is my studio work, it is my world, and I own up to it. Those who are outsiders are involved in explaining themselves while those who are or think they are in the mainstream do not feel this compulsion.

Who are we? How are we perceived? What are the preconceived notions? What is the reality of who we are? I have had to deal with this all my life. It comes into the work in many ways.

Your intervention work addresses relations in the external world…

…and there is a certain amount of collaboration involved… and a lot of listening and trying to be a sponge, then limiting what I do so that those who see it can absorb it rather than shut down. In my studio practice, I don’t have those limitations – I have to deal with myself. That can be frightening…