Baldwin’s Portal
Nairobi, Kenya
Photo by Payton Ruddock
Marlon F. Hall is a sculptor, filmmaker, and public artist whose work is rooted in social practice and whose process is grown from anthropological listening. He follows the lineage of Anthropologist and Artist Zora Neale Hurston by actively doing life with and deeply listening to communities he longs to create art with and for. As an art-making storyteller, he has received numerous accolades including being named a Fulbright Specialist by the U.S. Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs, serving as a 2021 Tulsa Artist Fellow and working as the Visual Anthropologist and Social Media Archivist for the Greenwood Art Project. He has also lent his talent and expertise as a CBS Gayle King Morning Show subject matter expert and as a producing storyteller for the Emmy Award winning Migrant Kitchen. His digital photos and film curation is featured in Google Arts and Culture with a special spotlight of his exhibition linked to the coveted Google search bar. His carefully curated Amnesia Therapy Salon Dinners have been featured in partnership with The British Council and The Kenya Pavilion at the 2022 The Venice Biennial.
Marlon is tilling the soil alongside local creatives and community advocates across the world to nourish and harvest human possibility growing from each city’s heart. He activates socially engaged art-installations, large scale photography, ethnographic films shaped as visual poems, and carefully designed salon dinners to move communities from refreshing places of healing, hope and joy. He has led major civic projects such as Doorways to Hope in Tulsa - a $278,000 underpass transformation honoring descendants of the 1921 Race Massacre - completed on time and within budget. In Houston, he co-created The Hueman Project, a 3,600 sq ft mural and sculptural installation that has turned concrete pillars and an underpass wall into a narrative space that holds, honors and amplifies the voices of individuals experiencing homelessness, turning a neglected underpass into a place of dignity and belonging. Commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies, City of Houston, Midtown Management, and the Texas Department of Transportation, The Hueman Project serves as a visual meditation on the idea of home — exploring what it means to be whole in mind, body, and spirit — through the resilient stories of Houston’s unhoused community.
THE ECOTONE TABLE (ARCHIVAL PHOTOS)
Sculpture/Table
Materials: Native Wood, Locally Sourced Archival Door
Dimensions: 12 ft x 4 ft (with an ancient door at the center)
This table, integrating reclaimed doors, fosters dialogue among culturally diverse groups. With a background in facilitating meaningful interactions across diverse communities, Marlon bridges cultural and social divides through art and communal experiences. His ongoing project, "From a Door at the Center of a Table," builds on over 200 curated dinners worldwide, blending art with anthropology to create transformative spaces.
He was most recently invited to become the University of Wisconsin Interdisciplinary Artist in Residence (click the link) featuring his practice of making physical tables to make meals for a culturally and cognitively diverse group of people. Notably, Marlon has collaborated with The British Council at the 2022 Venice Biennial's Kenya Pavilion, using salon dinners to foster dialogue amidst complex social, political, and environmental issues. AMNESIA SALON DINNER #30
News Articles:
Marlon works to magnify the images of those who are systemically minimized. People like Black children in America. His fieldwork in Tulsa for “Dear Black Future” was an exhibition of large scaled photography, documentary film and community engagement that honors the past of the black community by imagining its future.
Baldwin’s Portal, Marlon F. Hall 2023 BALDWIN’S PORTAL (ARCHIVAL PHOTOS) Found Object Sculpture
Materials: Triangular Mirrors, Reclaimed Ancient Door, Pyramid Structure Floor Suspension
MOON STRIKE, Marlon F. Hall 2021
Double exposed archival photo taken during the field research for #agardennotagraveyard healing installation that featured the stories of Kode Ransom, Rodney Tisdal, Sassion, and Millionaire.
Hall, Marlon BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (ARCHIVAL PHOTOS) Sculpture/Table
Materials: Native Wood, Locally Sourced Archival Doors
Dimensions: 12 ft x 4 ft (in four 6 ft diagonal sections)