Filmmaker and Writer Dream Hampton is New Museum’s 2024 Stuart Regen Visionary

dream hampton. | Photo by Erik Howard

THE NEW MUSEUM announced its 2024 Visionary is dream hampton. The annual Stuart Regen Visionaries Series recognizes “individuals who have made major contributions to art and culture and who are actively imagining a better future.”

An award-winning filmmaker, producer, and writer from Detroit, hampton is being honored as a distinguished speaker. She will be in conversation with curator and choreographer Rashida Bumbray and culinary entrepreneur Jon Gray, a co-founder of Ghetto Gastro, on Monday, March 4 at the New Museum in New York.

“The Stuart Regen Visionaries Series is a signature component of the New Museum’s public programs, which aim to connect the public with artists and thinkers creating timely and essential work across disciplines,” said New Museum Director Lisa Phillips.

“dream hampton has been an incredible partner to the Museum since our first IdeasCity collaboration in 2016, and we are thrilled to welcome her back as a Visionary joined by two outstanding interlocutors for an electrifying conversation.”

The “Visionaries Series is a signature component of the New Museum’s public programs, which aim to connect the public with artists and thinkers creating timely and essential work across disciplines.”
— New Museum Director Lisa Phillips

In the early 1990s, hampton became a major voice in hip hop, covering its ascendent icons and its unchecked sexism. She was an editor at The Source, a contributing writer at Vibe, and has written for The Village Voice, Essence, and The New York Times. hampton also co-wrote Jay Z’s memoir “Decoded” (2010).

Films by hampton include the award-winning short “Freshwater” (NYT OpDocs/PBS, 2023), a poetic reflection on Detroit, that blends her cherished childhood memories with the current realities of displacement, abandonment, flood waters, and climate change; “Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip Hop” (Netflix, 2023); and “Surviving R. Kelly” (Netflix, 2019). The film was nominated for an Emmy, won a Peabody Award, and is credited with R. Kelly finally being held to account and going to prison for years of sexual abuse.

Previous Visionaries include playwright Jeremy O. Harris and artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa in 2021, poet and author Claudia Rankine (2020), and curator and theater critic Hilton Als (2015). In 2009, choreographer Bill T. Jones gave the inaugural Visionaries lecture. CT

FIND MORE about dream hampton on her website

WATCH MORE “Fresh Water” (2023) is a recent New York Times Op-Docs by dream hampton. She describes the short film as “a portrait of Detroit, of its abandoned neighborhoods and the canals affected by the climate crisis that are reclaiming the blocks I biked as a child”

BOOKSHELF
In 2010, dream hampton collaborated with Jay-Z on his memoir, “Decoded.” Jon Gray is the co-author of “Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen.” Recent New Museum exhibition catalogs include Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined, “Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces,” “Faith Ringgold: American People,” and “Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott.”