How might artists rethink inherited ideologies? How might the politics surrounding the struggle to be seen be re-envisioned? 

Following its namesake exhibition, this publication addresses the force of whiteness, the counter-force of black resistance, and the persistence of the color line in the United States.

Great Force was edited by curator Amber Esseiva, who also contributes an overview essay as well as texts on each artist. Essays by Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin accompany W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1900 hand-drawn data visualization infographics. Excerpts from Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People make evident that the mould of the American citizen was constructed under the pressure of white domination. Contributions by Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Racial Imaginary Institute, and Rebecca Walker theorize the ongoing effects of racial tensions in the midst of the current war on terror and the resurgence of white nationalism marked by the Obama and Trump administrations.