Performance Review

Book excerpt: Performance Review, the first monograph by North Carolina-based artist, educator and activist Endia Beal, brings together work from first-hand experiences that highlight the realities and challenges for women of color in the corporate workplace. Beal's widely-published videos and photographic series, including "Am I What You're Looking For?" "Office Scene," "Can I Touch It?" and "9 to 5" are presented in a book sequence that highlights the ambitions, challenges and negotiations that women of color navigate within the workplace.Beal's signature directness and visual intelligence engages viewers of varying generations and backgrounds in dialogues that accept there is much to questions we push forward during the social evolutions of our time.The book includes an introduction by Beal's contemporary and colleague Whitney Richardson, former producer and writer for The New York Times "Lens" photography column among other roles, and now Global Events Manager for The New York Times in London.