Kelly M Johnson

Archival digital print, 20 x 30 inches Courtesy the artists & Whitespace Gallery

Charlie photographs tender bodies embedded in chimerical wilderness, highlighting the fantastical, imaginative relationship between our consciousness and our environments. In documenting artist Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry rest rituals, images of Black women laying together in soft, shaded grasses emphasizes the liberating power of rest, daydreaming, and naps as a foundation for collectively imagining and building new worlds. Hersey’s “rest is resistance” and “rest as reparations” frameworks are centered in Black liberation, highlighting the extractive natures of sleep deprivation and grind culture as facets of white supremacy and capitalism, originating from the structures of enslavement.

Further Reading Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto (2022) by Tricia Hersey

Gypsum, hydro-cal, squid ink, carbon, glitter, latex & gold leaf
Dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist

Lovie honors queer artists, caretakers, and cultural shapers of color in her layered, fresco-inspired works. “To Make Love to Concrete You Need an Indelible Feather” is an excerpt from an Audre Lorde poem—a sensuous phrase suggesting steadfast tenderness can soften unyielding forces. This work calls on the role of pleasure and embodiment to influence change overtime.

Further Reading “Uses of the Erotic” in Sister Outsider (1984) by Audre Lorde

Woodblock, paper, ink, fabric
30 x 40 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Alex is a Xicana sex educator, creating projects and leading workshops that embrace queer inclusive pleasure and sensuality. With the creation of Les Amantes as a daily practice in pleasure and sensation, the water snakes are a prayer and prophecy of choosing love for oneself and one another.

Further Reading
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019) by adrienne maree brown

Parafin wax candle and found objects
24 x 24 x 12 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Culminated under the Cancer full moon, an altar calls forth romance, sweetness, protection, desire, sumptuous sensuality and the question - what does love look like when you are your own true love?

13:50 minutes
Courtesy of the artists
Ambient sounds by mirzaphool
Project originally organized by Antonius Bui for DiverseWorks

This video meditation features swirling rainbow visuals and soundscapes including bird songs and rainfall, with Khushboo’s voice gently guiding us to embrace slowness and stillness, reminding us that we are whole and abundant beyond capitalist notions of productivity. Listen to receive a rmations and enjoy the power of simple presence.

Further Reading
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (2019) by Jenny Odell

2 channel, 1 minute video
Courtesy the artist & Denny Dimin Gallery
Filmed by Vashni Korin Soundtrack by Jamel Henderson

Immediately after the removal of the confederate General Beauregard Equestrian Statue in New Orleans in April 2017, Paula documented a covert performance dancing at dawn atop the emptied plinth in a hand-painted costume, before she was forced to leave by law enforcement. Inspired by the vibrant jazz funeral tradition of Second-Line Parades, Wilson moves in a hypnotic, triumphant manner, embodying a monument to Black joy, liberation, and resistance.

Further Reading Tenderness: An Honoring of my Black Queer Joy and Rage (2021) by Annika Hansteen-Izora

Sheetrock panel, gypsum, pigment, reflective acrylic, steel & wood
21 x 12 x 2 inches
Courtesy the artist

This work is a self-portrait of the artist reading a text by the Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980, who introduced the concepts of identity politics and interlocking systems of oppression, known today as intersectionality. Lovie captures a quiet revolutionary moment and memorializes Black women’s leadership and care.

Further Reading How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (2017) edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Mixed media 12 x 4 x 4 inches
Courtesy of the artists & Commonwealth and Council

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The artists write: “This work is based on proposals by Italian philosopher Rosi Braidotti, who speaks of collective nomadic subjectivities and of the possibilities contained in the future perfect tense. We believe that words have the power to will the future into being and that together we can imagine a different future. In particular, we are interested in imagining together the idea of a queer future, understood as a very open term that addresses not only issues of gender and sexuality, but also values beyond the binary and heteronormativity, and that opens up spaces for solidarity and non-definition.”

Found wood, linoleum, Arduino Uno, thermal printer, thermal paper, mechanical bird 12 x 12 x 4 inches Courtesy of the artist & Douglas Carranza Mena and Elizabeth Pérez Márquez

Beatriz explores simultaneity and temporality in her work, and believes words hold immense power to create our desired futures, as proposed by Italian philosopher Rosi Braidotti. This sculpture is part of a series developed in collaboration with various communities calling their dreams into being in the future perfect tense. This edition involves the artist’s friends who are immigrants or have experienced crossing borders in different directions. Together, they dreamed a list of collective desires they will have experienced when the future arrives.

Photo mural
48 x 96 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Demian is an Indigenous Diné transdisciplinary artist, poet, and curator, creating work on decolonization and Indigenous empowerment. The artist writes: “This piece is an offering to all the prayers and power that were released in 2020 at the start of the pandemic to help us shape a better future beyond the distractions, beyond capitalism, beyond fear, beyond heartache. Take a moment and cleanse yourself, bless yourself, shake off the decaying skin of simulated distress, tap into the energy of the earth and the cosmos, and reclaim your voice in the white noise of declining U.S. empire. Check in on one another and remind each other how important we are. Write new stories about how we defeated trolls, Karen’s, Chad’s, and monsters.”

Further Reading
We Left Them Nothing (2021) by Demian DinéYazhi’

Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery, Houston

JooYoung explores issues of identity, belonging, difference, and resilience through the playfulness of puppetry, cartoons, and sci-fi narratives in her video work. She envisions a parallel universe called the Cosmic Womb with a bright cast of characters who embark on various journeys to save their interdependent realities by freeing untold stories and silenced truths.

Excerpts of Kimi Hanauer’s legal will in the process of formation and grief ritual objects assembled as digital and xerox-based prints
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist

This installation reflects the importance of cultivating space for embodied and collective grief in the practice of transforming and reorienting our worlds toward collective care. The artist’s statement on this site-specific work is included in the binder at the front of the gallery.

Further Reading Radical Softness as a Boundless Form of Resistance (2020) edited by GenderFail