winter 2023-2024 studio update
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Hi y’all,
Happy winter. I’m wishing you all plenty of time to hibernate and spend time with loved ones this rainy season. I’ll be doing the same, hunkering down and incubating ideas for the new year. There will still be some great chances to catch my work out there in the world, but I’m also excited to announce some other studio projects that I’ve been working on.
In October, I was invited as a visiting artist-in-residence at Centrum, a center for arts and education housed at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA. This incredible opportunity was facilitated by the mighty Berette Macaulay, a brilliant photographer, writer, curator, and culture worker. During the visit, I had the opportunity to meet four incredible emerging artists: Roin Morigeau, a stᕋámiyaᕈ (Two-spirit) Bitterroot Salish Flathead Nations/French conceptual artist and beadworker, whose intricate and exquisite large-scale beadwork took my breath away. Hanifah Abioto, a multidisciplinary artist and homegrown root worker working in sound, music, text, printmaking, plant medicine, and spirituality, opened me up to thinking more expansively about the different frequencies through which we can tap into pleasure as a mode of healing and the importance of bringing as much “critical feeling” to our work as “critical thinking.” Her sister, Kalimah Abioto, a filmmaker, new media artist, and writer from Portland, was also on residency. I came to her studio expecting to talk about film but was blown away to see her playing a drum kit, experimenting with looping pedals and studying percussive traditions of the African Diaspora. Hannah Krafcik is an interdisciplinary neuroqueer dancer and new media artist and after a beautiful and deep dialogue on disability, ancestral memory, family secrets, and how to make art for every kind of body, they shared new choreography with me that moved me beyond words.
I arrived to Centrum two days after the October 7 attacks in Israel. As news of the attacks spread and Israel began bombing Gaza, I felt deeply uncertain of what would be the most meaningful political response from where I was. With limited Internet access, I found myself walking the grounds of Fort Worden, a long-demilitarized base, that sits on the ancestral lands of the S’Kallum and Chemakum peoples. I thought about what it means to be indigenous to a place, to be connected to a land that remembers you and your people. The violence that colonialism does to these ties to the land that make us who we are. I felt myself a guest on the land being invited to make sense of the violence unfolding in Gaza and hold it in dynamic tension with the violence of white supremacy and capital expansion that brought my people to this continent and that continues to displace and dispossess indigenous peoples who despite all odds have survived a five-centuries-long genocidal project of Western civilization. I did not go to Centrum with the intention of making new work but I felt moved to offer something beyond donating to philanthropic organizations or calling my representatives. What, as an artist and scholar and someone who believes in the power of ritual as a mode of both critical thinking and critical feeling.
What came to me was The Tree of Unforgetting, a ritual invitation to fully face the past and break the multigenerational curse of colonial violence that makes all our lives precarious and unlivable. I dressed an elder Madrone tree in the center of the park with ribbons in nine different colors, following the tradition of ancestral veneration in Orisha/Ifa practice. I then marched around the tree nine times, clapping when I completed each rotation and then cleansing the space. This was a small ritual offered for a community of six witnesses. The installation remained up on the grounds for nearly a month before park staff finally removed the ribbons. I was grateful to all of the artists-in-residence who bore witness to the piece. Many thanks to Berette Macaulay and Hannah Krafcik for photographing the performance and Kalimah Abioto for capturing it on film.
There's still plenty of time to catch my project Oñí Ocan, on view at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF as part of Bay Area Now 9. The show is up through May 5th and features 30 incredible Northern California artists. You won’t want to miss it— get your tickets here.
I was also honored to be included in this year’s iteration of Karen Seneferu’s iconic project, The Black Woman is God. The show is still up at Marlowe Gallery in SF, so don’t miss your chance to see it— my ritual dress from Bendición, made in collaboration with Monica Canilao, is on view. I had a beautiful experience showing my work alongside 49 other Black women artists. You can find out more about them, and the project, on their site.
Next spring, I’ll be participating in Groundings: Care and Climate Justice at the Heimbold Visual Arts Center at Sarah Lawrence College, opening March 26th, and curated by Sarah Hamill and Izzy Lockhart. I was also invited to show work in Art Souterrain, an incredible festival curated by Heather Davis in Montreal that runs from March 16th - April 7th.
I’m spending the winter on some new studio projects that I can’t wait to share with you. I’ll be announcing things more officially in the new year, but stay tuned for new ways to see (and wear!) more of my art.
Just a quick reminder before I sign off— my book To Defend this Sunrise is still available to purchase, and I’m still happy to come around and speak about the book, so don’t hesitate to reach out with inquiries. And as always, I appreciate all of the love and support from y’all. I couldn’t do this without it.
Talk soon,
C