NOV 2019 - JAN 2022

︎︎

Community arts facilitation, three mirrors, vinyl text

Video compilation (10 videos), augmented reality Instagram filter




Exhibition History:

2022, Things Imagined, VisArts, Rockville, MD

Things Imagined is a multimedia social practice installation that uses the halo motif to externalize and visually manifest the hopes of its Afro-diasporic participants.

This artwork has seen many interations. The first was held as a group facilitation in November 2019. At that time, twelve participants wrote onto mirrors with vinyl halo cut outs answering the question, Unlimited and unbound, how do you imagine your ideal future? I held this event as a consciousness raising initiative for Mundane Afrofuturism. Things Imagined also includes images from an accompanying Instagram filter prompting users to draw their answers to various questions as well as video snippets from Black elders who share nuggets of wisdom about their own full lives and the things they’ve manifested through prayer.






My use of the halo is symbolic of the space around your mind—bringing your dreams, wants and desires outside of your head and into the world. This exercise helps you to see it in physical space, with your eyes, as the first step towards actualizing it. Together we place those ideas within a space of importance because everyone is deserving regardless of wealth or class. Mundane afrofuturism encourages celebration of the everyday, and in this I uplift even the most basic wants because I intend to promote a growth mindset where we can hope to have more than just our needs met. We can have it all.


Participants: Sophie Amegah, Marie Amegah, Adetola Abdulkadir, Ganiyat Balogun, Camille Olliverre, Leila R'ghioui, Kaila Philo, Mohamed Tall, Measu, Hilina, Aaron Westcott, Bilphena Yahwon.


Images by Mohamed Tall and Measu.