Rituals of Commemoration, 2021
Inter|Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City
Miami Design District
February 5 - May 31, 2021
ABOUT THE WORK
What began as a gesture of anger and disbelief at the police murder of Michael Brown in 2014 turned into seven years of focused research, examination and inquiry. I have undertaken the collection, organization, and visualization of injustice, making it accessible to the public with a physical space of remembrance that includes over 600 inscribed bricks in column formations, steel rods and wallpaper. The installation serves as a space holder, a memory legacy that will ensure that the names of Black men, women and youth killed by police are not forgotten, giving the lives lost dignity and respect by creating a physical space of remembrance and a symbolic acknowledgement of a difficult present. This work is self-regulated and ongoing.
The driving impulse is my desire to use art as a tool to engage and inspire by spurring new understanding through expanded audience demographics, influencing opinion, and creating awareness that encourages civic dialogue. Through this work, I offer audiences of all ages, abilities, orientations, and cultural backgrounds to engage in brave and expansive conversations and see themselves in issues relevant to their lives.
While differing views may sometimes raise discomfort and dissent this work is a conduit for open sharing and learning with partnerships formed alongside individuals in cultural, educational and learning institutions that affect civic action and encourage citizen participation locally and nationally.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator (DVCAI) opens its traveling exhibition Inter|Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City in the Miami Design District. A bold, multi-regional, multi-disciplinary exploration of the emergence of the "Creole City" as a local, regional and global phenomenon. Internationally recognized curator Rosie Gordon-Wallace, president and chief curator of Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, Inc. (DVCAI), designed this exhibition to provide a lens through which communities and community leaders internationally can begin to better understand themselves, their diversities and their unlimited possibilities.
This exhibition is presented at a time when Diaspora artists and voices are challenging social injustices, celebrating identities, and reactivating and bridging communities through contemporary art and scholarship. The complexities and diversities represented by this exhibit are emergent, and in many cases, ascendant, across the world. Inter|Sectionality scholarship includes catalogue essays by Sanjit Sethi, Rosie Gordon-Wallace, Donette Francis, Ph.D., Alix Pierre, Ph.D., Erica Moiah James, Ph.D., Jafari Allen, Ph.D., and Patricia Saunders, Ph.D. The exhibition is grouped around themes that encompass the diaspora and "Creole City" life stories, memory, politics, myth, religion, and culture. The exhibition showcases the works of 27 artists from 18 countries that represent a broad spectrum of the African Diaspora.