How Artist Kiyan Williams Interrogates American History Through Mud

Earth, soil, dirt — all are essential, distinct features of your practice. What draws you to working with this material? 

What it comes down to is that I just really like the tactile sensation of having earth in my hands — manipulating it by hand. If I was to relate it to anything, it would be growing up and helping my grandmother in her garden and planting things with her — this really transcendent experience of working with earth by hand. It’s also an abject material; it relates conceptually to how I think about queerness: of being messy, of refusing boundaries, of being considered disposable, like dirt. Dirt is matter out of place; dirt is everything that doesn’t belong, what needs to be removed in order to make a place sterile. In this sense, dirt not only refuses normativity, it’s literally the catalyst for life. It is the lifesource. And, of course, it holds so much history. All of those things converge to compel me to continue making work with it.

That’s so beautiful. There’s something powerful about making an aesthetic choice based on the enjoyment one finds from simply doing it, physically. 

Being an artist is not easy. It is not guaranteed that you’ll have a career that will sustain you. For all intents and purposes, it’s not the practical choice. I do this every day because I deeply enjoy it, because it gives me such a sense of vitality. For me, there was literally no other option. I don’t really know what else I would do and live a life of dignity and a life of creativity and vitality if I wasn’t an artist. It was this or bust.

I’m thinking now about the connection between you and yourself as a child in the garden with your grandmother. What role would you say younger versions of yourself play in your practice? 

Oh my God. Such a huge, huge role. Like in “Meditation on the Making of America,” I’m literally throwing dirt on the wall. That gesture comes from this childlike sense of wanting to both play and fuck shit up. In what other context is it socially sanctioned to just throw a bunch of fucking mud at the wall? 

Not enough.

There’s nowhere else you could really do that. And there should be more, because it’s very therapeutic. [Laughs] I highly recommend it if you haven’t done it.