The Language Must Not Sweat (2019)
five-channel video projection, soil, sound, haint-blue lights, water
The Language Must Not Sweat is a five-channel video installation, titled after an expression used by novelist Toni Morrison, that explores what puddles deep in the psyche of Black American men. Inside the installation, haint-blue lights are suspended above mounds of soil and a pool of water that visitors are welcomed to wander. Stretched across the space are video projections that loop of a blurry figure in a broken mirror; cocoa butter lotion alongside piled books on black manhood; and the blue-black, fleshed bodies of three black men drenched in sweat beads cycling through stages of flutter, exertion, and contemplation.