Altar | 2021
“As life and love, these performative dances, songs, noises and tongues illustrate how enjoyment, desire, and joy are important for the tradition that antiphonally speaks back against aversion, embarrassment and abandonment against the debasement and denigration of blackness” Ashon T Crawley, 2016.
Reflecting on the work of Ashon T. Crawley in ‘Black pentecostal breathe’ ALTAR is a moving image piece comprised of archival footage, sound design and improvised piano compositions. It reflects on the complexities of post-colonial African spirituality, Christian Pentecostalism, Ifa cosmology and the bridges maintained across oceans between the African continent and the Black diaspora.
Created for Studio Museum Harlem's 2021 'Memories for the Future' - a workshop series with accompanying digital resources, inviting the public to consider how memories are preserved and given visual and sonic form - the short piece was selected as part of an online screening, hosted by Garrett Bradley and Trevor Mathison.