The Seat of Knowledge with Joyce J. Scott
Earlier this year, the SAM team had the honor to film in the galleries with artist Joyce J. Scott inside her large-scale installation The Seat of Knowledge (2024), created for her major retrospective that is now on view at SAM. Walk a Mile in My Dreams features over 140 works from the 1970s to the present—including sculpture, bead work, jewelry, textiles, artwear garments, performance compilations, mixed-media installations, and a new large-scale commission. It’s a summative career retrospective that reveals the full breadth of Scott’s utterly unique artistic vision to challenge unequal social roles, confront traumatic histories, and agitate for freedom.
She settled into the magnificent seat, which is a place that brings together lineages, ancestries, birthrights, histories, memories, mentors, friends: the collective experience of Joyce J. Scott. From her perch she spoke as a fluid winding river, making some hilarious diversions now and then, sharing all that she has learned and unlearned and learned again in her travels around the world and back again, dropping gems as quickly as we could capture them with our cameras. Experience her vision of beauty, humor, and fearlessness in life and in art.