Hamza Walker

Exhibitions and Pre-conditions for Healing

Hamza Walker

Director, The Brick, Los Angeles, United States.

Slavery is often referred to as the United States’ original sin. It was the issue over which the US Civil War was fought. Yet, how it is addressed in public memorials, taught in schools, and addressed in museums is a matter of debate, exposing an inability, if not outright unwillingness, to come to terms with slavery and its legacies. Exposing a rift in collective consciousness, the topic of slavery has been branded divisive, further deferring any sense of healing. Using the exhibition MONUMENTS as an example, this presentation will broach questions of the museum’s role in staging preconditions for healing.

Biography:

Since 2016, Hamza Walker has been the director of The Brick, formerly known as LAXART, a non-profit alternative art space in Los Angeles.

Until 2016, he served as Associate Curator/Director of Education at The Renaissance Society, a non-collecting museum of contemporary art on the University of Chicago campus.

Recent exhibitions at The Brick include: MONUMENTS (2025-26); Betsy Paige Smith, Unshade Me of You (2025); Gregg Bordowitz, This Is Not A Love Song (2025); Nikita Gale, Takers (2022); Ari Marcopoulos/Joe McPhee, Alone Together (2021); Kandis Williams/Cassandra Press, The Absolute Right to Exclude (2021); and Postcommodity, Some Reach While Others Clap (2020).