Theaster Gates is a visual artist, archivist, curator and musician who metabolises Black identity and history through material explorations of labour, spirituality, vacancy and spatiality. Notions of value, exchange and circulation are central to his multidisciplinary practice, which he leverages and manipulates to maximal social effect via urban interventions and initiatives that empower communities and transform neighbourhoods. Shaped by his background in urban planning and preservation, Gates often salvages and reclaims materials from ruinous buildings and incorporates them into sculptural works, the value of which he then uses to finance the revitalisation of city blocks. In 2009, the artist established the Rebuild Foundation, an artist-led Black cultural hub that facilitates neighbourhood regeneration and accessible community programming in his native Chicago.