Collective Survival in three parts, covers six panels, making up three sandwich boards with text and pattern layers that nod to and speak the language of a collective survival. That this collective survival powers so much of our past, present and future making, that I can’t imagine a world without the work we do together. Part one is the words of Lucille Clifton’s poem “Won’t you celebrate with me”, 1993. That we mark our living with the fact that life is a series of daily survivals. That we take the time to celebrate, honor, love on all the ways and forms of survival that have gotten me and you and us to this day…. That everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed. Part two uses text from Akwaeke Emezi’s biography, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, that thinks about our relational dependency and the ways we see, fight, thrive and survive through and with each other….. We are safer with each other. Part three is fragments from a conversation with me and a dear friend Lee Rae Walsh about the deep work and nourishment practices around crafting and forming kinship. Naming all the tools, “ingredients” of a giving kinship space….webs, lovers, spiritual lube, quilts, nets, co-breathing.
Shown here in ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You’, Speedwell Gallery, Portland, ME, 2022