FROM A DOOR AT THE CENTER OF A TABLE: 2024 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST RESIDENCY

by Marlon F. Hall and Lead Faculty member Faisal Abdu’Allah

The Class-Picture taken near the end of the classes that became a right of passage.

University of Wisconsin–Madison | Spring 2024 Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence

As a Spring 2024 Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence with the Division of the Arts and the School of Education’s Art Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, artist, author, and anthropologist Marlon F. Hall activated story listening as a core civic practice.

At the center of the residency was a weekly dinner-table classroom built by Hall from reclaimed wood, with a century-old door placed at its center. Around this table, culturally and cognitively diverse students gathered each week—not to debate ideas, but to practice listening across difference.

 Together, they told their story through food, sound, and a personal artifact. Students were guided not toward performance, but toward presence. The core inquiry: What is a storyteller without a story listener?

Each gathering featured:

  • A community citizen

  • A musical artist-in-residence

  • A culinary artist

A citizen who was invited to share her story through a family artifact. The students listened to her share her story as a way to learn the power of story-listening.

Musical artist in residence Hannah and Max share there stories in the class as a tool for cultural impact and impression.

Exhibition & Performance: “Can I Tell You a Story? From a Door at the Center of the Table”

The residency culminated in a major exhibition at the Memorial Union’s Main Gallery titled: Can I Tell You a Story?: From a Door at the Center of the Table

Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Union Directorate Art Committee and the Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program (Faculty Lead: Faisal Abdu’Allah), the exhibition included:

  • Ethnographic photographic documentation of the dinner classroom

  • Sculptural doors salvaged from family homes over 100 years old

  • Large-scale printed written reflections designed by student Emily Knott

• A communal dinner held inside the exhibition space

THE HAMEL CENTER SCREENING

The residency also produced a documentary film edited collaboratively with a student, shot by media department students, and directed by Hall as a visual poem on collective listening.

The film was screened at the Hamel Music Center and live-scored improvisationally by a jazz ensemble from Coda under the direction of Grammy Award–winning trumpeter Keyon Harrold.

As the score unfolded in real time, Hall live-edited the film—layering B-roll, magnifying images of performers and audience members—transforming the screening into a social sculpture of shared attention.