ABOUT
Those Who Desire is a project from Vinod Hopson exploring the lost, often difficult history of the city of Houston through performance and cartography. This takes the for of bus and walking tours for tourists and locals alike - anyone willing to take a critical look at our shared city.
The city of Houston is unusually diverse, and while the the civic and tourist industries take great pleasure in touting that diversity, the origins of those diverse communities, and the stories of their growth and importance to the city are overlooked, or worse, woefully ignored. I have engaged in a pursuit of those stories, and the forgotten histories of the city, stitching them together to form a more fully understood and appreciated Houston.
This project is funded in part by The Idea Fund, a re-granting program administered by DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses, and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Support from The Idea Fund was awarded twice, in 2021 and 2016.
thosewhodesire@gmail.com
Vinod Hopson is an artist and storyteller. His project, Those Who Desire, explores the lost, often difficult histories of the city of Houston through tours and cartography. Hopson's research and stories center people and places of color obscured by dominant, white narratives and histories. Past tours have focused on Houston's Downtown, historic Freedmen's Town, and the 1917 Camp Logan Uprising. His current research focuses on the Brazos River, west of Houston, on whose banks the state's first slave plantations were established, the first Texas millionaires were made, and where Jim Crow tactics were first tested large-scale. Hopson received a BFA in Photography and Digital Media from University of Houston. He was born in New Jersey and has lived in Houston since 1996.
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ABOUT THE IMAGES ON THIS WEBSITE
Nearly all of the images on this site are courtesy of PURPLE TIME SPACE SWAMP, a visual archive of Houston for public use. All Images are by the author of the blog, and no copyright will be enforced. We appreciate his commitment to Houston, and our shared goal to document, and expose the parts of it that aren't talked about as much as they should be.
Purple Time Space Swamp is an project of the Pugilist Press, a one-man collective.