If We Came From Nowhere Here, Why Can’t We Go Somewhere There? | MAMBU BADU

May 9, 2014

IF WE CAME FROM NOWHERE HERE,

WHY CAN’T WE GO SOMEWHERE THERE? 

curated by 

OPENING RECEPTION: MAY 9 FROM 6-9pm

Curators’ Talk: May 24, from 2-4 pm

EXHIBITION DATES: MAY 9 – JUNE 27

 

If We Came From Nowhere Here, Why Can’t We Go Somewhere There? is a photography and video-based exhibit charting journeys into temporality, flux, and Afrofuturism as explored by self-identified women of Black/African descent–Charmaine Nicole Bee, Nakeya Brown, Sonia Louise Davis and her partner and collaborator Ivan Forde, Danielle Deadwyler, Bree Gant, Naima Green, Dhool Hassan, Janna Ireland, Kali-Ma Nazarene, and Sienna Pinderhughes.

Taking its title from the song “Imagination” by noted jazz musician and Afrofuturist artist Sun Ra, If We Came From Nowhere Here, Why Can’t We Go Somewhere There? features portraiture, found photography, collage, and video art that challenge us to explore the “somewhere there” as both a metaphor for the site of possibility as well as the journey to recontextualize the present moment. Constructing and deconstructing narratives of Blackness and womanhood, these emerging artists mine their personal histories and occupy a liminal space (Liu), illustrating that “every act of creation is also an act of thought, and an act of thought is a creative act, because it is defined above all by its capacity to de-create the real.” (Agamben) Through the act of de-creating, these artists are creating new histories and new trajectories of Black critical theory.

Works cited: 

Agamben,Giorgio. “Sixth International Video Week”, Centre Saint-Gervais, Geneva, Switzerland. November 1995.  Lecture.

Liu, Hung. “Blues Notes for Blues People,”Weems Live: Past Tense/Future Perfect. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. 25 April 2014. Lecture.

MAMBU BADU is a collective of cultural producers and artists who curate art-based experiences that center the process and product of Black self-identified women with a focus on photo-based work. Founded in 2010, MAMBU BADU currently is  Yodith Dammlash, Allison McDaniel, Kameelah Rasheed, and Danielle Scruggs.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Charmaine Nicole Bee, Nakeya Brown, Sonia Louise Davis, Danielle Deadwyler, Bree Gant, Naima Green, Dhool Hassan, Janna Ireland, Kali-Ma Nazarene, and Sienna Pinderhughes.