Rescuing Beauty
Julie Le Brun (1780–1819) Looking in a Mirror, Elisabeth Louise Vigée. Public Domain
In this Library Chat, poet Will Harris and performance artist Haman Mpadire explore the complexities of identity, art, and the human condition, questioning the need for labels like “artist” or “poet” in favor of simply being human. They discuss the tension between self-expression and societal expectations, the nature of beauty in the unnoticed and everyday, and the significance of memory and place in shaping creative work. In 2024-25, Will was an Institute Fellow and Haman a Displaced Artist Resident at Reid Hall.
Will Harris is the author of poetry books RENDANG (2020) and Brother Poem (2023). He has won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. He co-translated Habib Tengour’s Consolatio (Poetry Translation Centre) with Delaina Haslam in 2022, and helps facilitate the Southbank New Poets Collective with Vanessa Kisuule. At the Institute, Harris will be working on a project about the public care system, looking at its structuring tensions: race, class, the family itself. It will draw on a diary kept over several months working in care homes in East London in the period immediately after the pandemic.
Haman Mpadire is a performance artist, dancer, and researcher born in Eastern Uganda, originally from the Busoga tribe. He graduated with a Masters degree of Arts, Literature and Languages in Dance from CCN – Paul Valéry University. He received the Pina Bausch Fellowship in 2023, following his participation in the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès “Artists in the Community” bursary scheme and the Institut français “Visas pour la création” program. His artistic practices probe experimental research around colonial systems and post-colonial theories. In his current projects, Haman is exploring animistic notions of the ancient Busoga kingdom and beyond along with the complex relationships between identity and visibility for black African bodies.
