REMEMBERING(S)
an exhibit in collaboration with storm stokes
featuring a live dance performance, textile sculpture, and film/video installation works
colab gallery, lewis center for the arts ; november 7-8, 2023
documenation film and photography by COLLIN RIGGINS
This research is one iteration of an ongoing wondering on how to capture the anachronistic nature of a black subject and its spirit. In theory, it continues a game of telephone with Yetu, a fictional sea creature responsible for holding the violent history of her species in Rivers Solomon’s 2019 story The Deep. Her species are hybrid human-whale creatures whose ancestors were those babies born into the Atlantic by enslaved, African women thrown overboard. Yetu alone, however, bears the burden of remembering the violent history of enslavement and death. These memories consume her body and mind- constantly shifting her reality to that of the past, requiring her to worry deeply about the future, all the while fighting to stay conscious in her present body. Yetu’s process of remembering is analogous to my hypothesis for capturing the black spirit; as a holistic exploration must engage the spirit’s reckoning with the violent past of racial constructions and the visceral act of reimagining racialized futures all within one conscious body.
REMEMBERING(S) embraces Solomon’s inspiration: a Detroit techno-electric duo “Drexciya,” whose sound (Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller) paints the space; harkens sails and the water of the sea; and continues conversation with Solomon’s literary construction of queer, temporal disruption.
REMEMBERING(S) embraces Solomon’s inspiration: a Detroit techno-electric duo “Drexciya,” whose sound (Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller) paints the space; harkens sails and the water of the sea; and continues conversation with Solomon’s literary construction of queer, temporal disruption.
Storm Stokes (@stormwrks) served as artistic director, choreographer, performer, and assistant editor of REMEMBERING(S), in collaboration with Kirsten Pardo (@kirstenpardo.studio) who served as the videographer and editor of the project. The installation was built in deep collaboration and negotiation with vision and practice.
film performance by Alyson Podwoiski and Audrey Spain;
live performance by Jadi Wang, Mary Burdick, Pippa LaMacchia, and Taylor Yamashita
set design in collaboration with Julia Stahlman
special thanks to Lewis Center for Arts staff Nick sharpe and Joe arnold; the African American Studies department’s Administrative and Events Coordinator Dionne Worthy; and importantly, the Adam family (Alex Adam ‘07 Award) and Lawrence P. Wolfen ’87 whose funding made this project possible
