For his first solo museum show and largest exhibition to date, EJ Hill will create a massive sculptural installation that incorporates a stage for performances as well as a functional roller coaster. Hill’s practice focuses on everyday experiences that intermingle public struggle, endurance, trauma, and joy, whether within athletics, religion, the American education system, or amusement parks. Hill has often incorporated his physical presence by performing as part of these projects. He explains that “my body holds the echo or remnant of something,” and works towards a future that elevates those who are frequently not seen and heard. In the United States, amusement parks were contested sites throughout Jim Crow-era desegregation efforts for equitable access to pleasure, leisure, and recreation. For Hill, roller coasters are public monuments to the possibility of attaining joy—which, as he notes, is “a critical component of social equity.”

About the Artist
EJ Hill is a visual artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Much of what he knows, he has learned from: Estelle Thompson, Karen Thompson, Ernest Hill Jr., Margaret Nomentana, Joan Giroux, Adam Brooks and Mat Wilson (Industry of the Ordinary), Andrea Fraser, Mario Ybarra Jr., Na Mira, Matt Austin, Young Chung, Jordan Casteel, TLC, Lauryn Hill, and Augie Grahn. He is forever indebted to these educators and thanks them endlessly.

This exhibition is organized by Alexandra Foradas, Curator of Visual Art at MASS MoCA. Makayla Bailey is the Co-editor and Interpretation Consultant.

EJ Hill, joy study (pre-drop palms), 2019.
Courtesy of the artist.