"The Call"

2019

Single Channel Video

Duration: 17 minute video


Recent and upcoming exhibitions of this project includes:

2023 Exhibition at Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates

2022 Solo Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

2019 Solo Exhibition at Michigan State University's SCENE Metrospace, East Lansing, MI


Description:

This project documents video performances by descendants of prominent civil rights activists across the United States. Pictured here is Melani Douglass and Asherah Douglass (descendants of abolitionist Frederick Douglass), Ayanna Gregory (daughter of activist Dick Gregory), and Paula Whaley (sister of James Baldwin), in Paula Whaley’s home in Baltimore, MD, and at Fells Point in Baltimore, a historic slave port. Through a mixture of spoken word, song, and sculptural work, the descendants gathered as a “call to action” for social solidarity and strength during our current political times marked by an awakening of the historical racial and sexual violence against black bodies.