Installation Work

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Back Home and Across the River_edited.jp

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THA BLOCK IS HOT

Five 6-foot-tall Asphalt columns echoing 3yrs of collected sounds of nature and city scape sounds. Rain, lawn mower, my dad telling a joke, sirens, beauty shop chatter and more. Being face to face with the memory of the street.

Contemplating PLAY

wood, basketball, mulch, asphalt, metal chair
series of questions: What is play? What does play look like, especially during adversity, trauma, or grief? How to neutralize space and material-when certain materials spaces and ones body are hypervisible? How to implement play into the social-psychological narrative of adult/hood? How does abstract art relate to or challenge my notion of black identity?

questions contributed to the visual representation of the psychological approach in creating and initiating a space for play- thus contemplating play.

Contemplating PLAY

wood, basketball, mulch, asphalt, metal chair

Back Home and Across tha River

Back Home and Across tha River is an imagined site based on my lived experience in East St. Louis. Here, I am honoring a place, people, and play.
This new site is a hopeful ritual navigating play, safety, and togetherness. As a part of my childhood memories, choosing basketball as a symbol of home was intuitive. While also countering and intersecting into the discourse of how basketball is perceived and understood in urban and black spaces, I am celebrating the game of choice and chances in my piece.
In all, this is a self, family, and geographical portrait--
Grounded and stern in its existence and possibilities.