Portals: Traversing Black Continuums

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

In the past I have often looked outside of myself–society at large, my culture, my neighborhood–for answers on how I should move forward. Portals became my entry point to dig into my own personal history and experiences by way of everyday objects. It is through the very ‘mundaneness’ of the objects that I found the courage to allow them to transport me and my collaborators into my/our memories, dreams, aspirations and fantasies. The everyday became magical. Allow us to take you on our journey through these PORTALS.

- Kendra J. Ross

We are Kendra J. Ross, Ziedah Diata, and Pia Monique Murray, longtime friends and neighbors in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Opening at Recess as part of Session, we are bringing our individual practices together for the first time to create a deeply collaborative project. PORTALS: Traversing Black Continuums is a journey through time, space, generations, and dimensions! A multi-disciplinary work, PORTALS interweaves dance, sound, video, and craft into a fully immersive installation that is transportive and transformative.

Our super fast-paced society spits out technological advancements faster than our human imaginations can even dream, and still so much is out of our control. There is so much wisdom to be gleaned from manual and analog technologies, and with less negative impacts than our digital and virtual advancements. Common items from our lives– candy, bags, mirrors, and water, serve as portals to travel between Black past, present and the Afro-future. Whether through a lesson passed down by an elder with a butterscotch drop, or a bag full of bags tucked in a kitchen corner, these items symbolize the resilience and ingenuity passed down through Black families over generations that we can use today.

More/new technology will not save us. There is no answer AI could generate that would liberate us from ourselves. We must return to our ancient technologies, rely on our ancestral wisdom. We once understood our place in relation to all things, and we can get there again. But it is not with more technology, and it is most certainly not with AI.

- Pia Monique Murray

“This work calls to me, particularly in this time and place on the planet, because so many of us are suffering from the sickness of separation and disconnection and dislocation— from self, from others, from spirit, from culture, from nature. Portals asks us to notice and touch the sometimes forgotten passageways that invite us back to connection over and over again if we lean in and listen. Portals calls us to come out to play—together. To make medicine from memory, from sensory, from the embodied, from the ephemeral, from the mundane.”

-Ziedah Diata

PORTALS is about exploring how mundane, everyday objects serve as gateways through the continuum of the Black experience. While this project is intended to be experienced and enjoyed across race and culture, the bridging of Black experiences—across space and time—is at the center. Therefore, we center the Black community in the cultivation and development of the ever-evolving work. This time travel journey comes to life through intergenerational conversation and participation through the weaving of perspectives, associations, and societal contexts for the objects we are exploring. We hope this Session will be an invitation to shift our perspective of innovation away from always trying to make something new and toward the observation, interrogation, upliftment and reinvention of tradition and custom.

In PORTALS the collaborative art-making process with the public is as core to the project as the final installation. Our creative process invites others to participate by sharing stories, contributing items to the community altar, joining art-making workshops, or participating in the community conversations. Each artist in our collective will host a workshop centering their own practice, in which participants will get to make items and expressions that will appear in the final installation. We invite you to be inspired by the sounds of water as you create original poetry, share valuable life lessons while crafting a candy mosaic, or join a dance workshop and have your movement captured for the evolving on-site video installation!

— Kendra J. Ross, Ziedah Diata, and Pia Monique Murray

During open hours, community members are invited to witness and participate in the art-making process. You’re welcome to contribute to our evolving community altar—by offering an item such as a piece of candy, a mirror, a bag, or a container of water, something seemingly mundane that holds personal meaning for you. You can also choose to share a story or respond to one of the prompts provided.