still: a rival geography, 2020
If movement is how we resist, then stillness is how we persist. still: a rival geography, is a ritual that honors my ancestors: those named and unnamed, known and unknown. Through the creation of an incantation bowl, an ancient Judaic protection practice, still is a meditation on all the ways that my Black and Jewish ancestral lineages find home and find each other in my body and being. Guided by the wisdom of water and the light of my ancestors, still, is a meditative call to presence.
Inspired by the Black August tradition, I devoted the month of August to engage in spiritual ritual, creative practice, and research to explore Black fugitivity and to honor the lived experiences and legacy of Black people who practiced fugitivity. Tina Camp’s description of rival geographies, a term coined by Edward Said, refers to spaces on the margins that are sites of resistance to colonial occupation. The borderlands, the liminal spaces, the outside becomes its own kind of crossroads: where traditions and innovations meet, collide, coalesce, and conspire. still: a rival geography, brings life to the multidimensionality of stillness while centering ritual as a timeless site of resistance and resilience.
This offering was commissioned by Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative as part of the black/water Project.
It was featured in the Phillips Collection’s Inside Out, Upside Down Exhibition.