As the Ruffin Distinguished Artist in Residency in the Spring of 2018, Williamson adopted the persona of The Ghost of Thomas Jefferson in order to re-present the ubiquitous figure in a new light. Around campus, Jefferson is revered. However, Williamson's video and performance work over the past five years, for which she have embodied the persona of Sally Hemings, compelled her to take a more dialectic approach to the man and his legacy. The performance of the The Ghost and the subsequent portraits are intended to be at once playful and haunting. Questions of ‘whiteness’ and its material, aesthetic, and political value, history and its echoes in the present day, and identity as a construct of narrative were on her mind when developing this image.
Photography credits: Gaby Fuller, Liza Pittard
