notes towards becoming a spill (2019)
haint-blue paint, LED lights, Audio (30 minutes), Mirrored Glass Sculpture, Mud, Georgia Red Dirt
notes towards becoming a spill advances my constructions of “blue spaces” that explore the psychological states of contemporary black men. My specific use of the color Haint Blue within this and other activations comprise a larger constellation of works referencing its deep-rooted history from the Gullah Geechee people who live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia and South Carolina. Created from indigo, one of the common crops of the American South, the Gullah originated the color as a spiritual marker in their homes. Haint is also Southern vernacular for ghost or spirit that has not moved on. Within the installation, there is a mound of soil with a mirrored-glass sculpture of my head embedded inside. Audio recordings of black men expressing truths about themselves fill the space to cultivate a site of reconciliation that is rooted in a black ancestral remedy and revision of legible black masculinities.