Study Guide | 2023-2024
Developed collectively by Altagracia Alvarado, Asha Grant, Crea Jackson, Ephraim Owairu, Marvin James, Sela Kerr, Sharla Berry, Shewit Zerai, and SunXochitl Castro.
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c/o Altagracia Alvarado & Marvin James
Pélagie Gbaguidi: The Body as Archive (2022, Interview)“I am an archive, we are archives, and if we share them, we might better understand ourselves and the world we live in.”
“My work revolves around the idea of seeing speech and images as signs that need to be deciphered and transmitted. The poetry, drawings, paintings, narrative rituals, and photo objects all create open spaces from which I draw contemporary forms. In this sense, my work reflects the urgency of expressing our experiences…”
The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons (Documentary )
David Hammons Follows His Own Rules by Calvin Tomkins c/o The New Yorker (2019, Article/Audio)
“You have to go back to what we were before you go forward to what we want to be,” Hammons had said to Thompson, as Thompson recalls in a 1992 essay. “I be into memory, more than the avant-garde.”
For his second show at the Gallery Shimada, in 2001, he placed a huge boulder in the bed of a truck, planted a garden around it, and drove around the city.
In 1992, the Whitney paid a hundred thousand dollars for “Untitled,” a massive sculpture in which lengths of construction rebar coated with hair spring like dreadlocks from a base of large stones.
That reminded me of something Hammons had said, years earlier, to Kellie Jones: “I hate the system, every black man does, but too much work about racism is redundant. You’ve got to take your anger and make it beautiful, like Dr. J going to the hoop or like Duke Ellington.”
Saidiya Hartman & Arthur Jafa c/o The Hammer Museum (2019, Video)
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c/o Altagracia Alvarado & Marvin James
“Abundance is shared enoughness” by @PeoplesOracle reading for the Dec 2022 Full Moon (Video)Dr. Olivia Saunders: Sovereignty & Abundance c/o Common Good Podcast (2022, Podcast)
Degrowth: A Call for Radical Abundance by Jason Hickel (2018, Article)
The Mondragon Cooperatives (Video)
“...though these artists pioneered new sounds in blues, jazz, and gospel, most labored for no recognition and little pay.”
“... when black audiences heard that they could buy a record of a black performer singing black music, they rushed to stores, buying 75,000 copies of the record despite it costing the equivalent of two hours of work of the average black person’s salary.”
Thebe Magugu is transforming secondhand rags into high fashion riches c/o Dazed (2022, Article)
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c/o Sharla Berry
Time Theory
Time and Black Life
Sha Clack Clack (Poem, 1998, Saul Williams)
We Real Cool (Poem, 1959, Gwendolyn Brooks)
We Real Cool (Video, 2017, Gwendolyn Brooks)
Created by Manual Cinema in association with Crescendo Literary, with story by Eve Ewing and Nate Marshall and music by Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods.
A Love Song for Latasha (Trailer, 2022)
The Black Progress Index (Data)
Black Time Theory
Revisiting the Legend of Flying Africans by Sophia Nahli Allison c/o The New Yorker (Article, 2019)
Story Time: Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold c/o MoMA (Article, 2020)
Black Grandmother Paradoxes (Article)
Time and Place
Time Lapse Video by Metro Los Angeles (Video, 2018)
Aerial footage of Crenshaw Blvd. restoration at Leimert Park Station
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c/o Sela Kerr
Empowerment/Erasure300 Years of African American Technology and Innovation by Portia James (Article, 2021)
Black to Techno by Jenn Nkiru (Short Film, 2019, 21 min)
Life on The Internet
The Colonization of our Attention by For The Wild (Podcast, 2022, 1 hr 8 min)
Art and Technology
The Q’eswachaka Bridge, The 124 foot Bridge Woven by Hand (Video, 2018, 3 min)
"Milford Graves: Fundamental Frequency” (Article, 2023)
“Milford Graves: Fundamental Frequency” Curator Walkthrough (Video, 9 min)
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c/o Shewit Zerai
Nature as Portal/MemoryRemembrance & Internal Landscape c/o Black Girl Environmentalist (2023, Blog Post)
Spirits of Sedona by Kamau Kenyatta (2001, Song, 5 min)
Seeds, Grief, and Memory with Rowen White Prentis Hemphill (2023, Podcast, 50 min)
Nature as KinHeat is Not a Metaphor by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2023, Article)
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993, Earthseed verse, p. 315)
Nature as Gender LiberationTajabone by Raphael Chatelain and Mykki Blanco (2021, Video, 4 min)
None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary by Travis Alabanza (2023, Poem, p.13)
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c/o Asha Grant
Space ‘n PlaceThe differences between Space and Place by Ginger Thu (Article, 6 min read)
Space is the Place by Sun Ra (Long Video, 1 hr 21 min)
Space is the Place by Sun Ra (Short Video, 6 min)
Mapping Black Imaginaries and Geographies by Julian Chambliss (Website, Article)
Kevin Durant BlackPlanet Page (2004, Screenshot)
Journeying/Home
Beltway by Solange (2019, Music Video)
Home by Whitney Houston (1983, Live Performance)
The Black Home: Queering Home & Queerness (2023, 56 min)
Homeplace: A Site of Resistance by bell hooks (1990, Essay)
“The child in each of us
Knows paradise.
Paradise is home.
Home as it was
Or home as it should have been.
Paradise is one's own place,
One's own people,
One's own world,
Knowing and known,
Perhaps even
Loving and loved.
Yet every child
Is cast from paradise-
Into growth and new community,
Into vast, ongoing
Change.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
Futurity
Maroon Communities in Americas (Short Article)
Creating a Black Third Space in Cleveland (2021, Short Article)
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c/o Ephraim Owairu
What is Motion in Physics: Laws of Motion, Types and Examples (Article)How Important is Speed in a Revolution? (2019, Exhibition)
Flight of the Starlings (2016, Short Film, 2 min)
Why Do Starlings Flock in Murmurations? (2021, Video, ) min)
Black Star: Rebirth Is Necessary by Jenn Nkiru c/o Nowness (2017, Short Film, 10 min)
Raised By Krump by Maceo Frost (2017, Short Film, 21 min)
Fred Moten and Saidiya Hartman at Duke University c/o The Black Outdoors (2016, Video)
“Best thing they ever did was fool us into thinking that the Civil Rights Movement was a mass movement.”
Midnight On The Clock Of The World: An Interview with Robin D.G. Kelley (2020, Audio)
The Counter Revolution of 1776 by Gerald Horne (2014, Book)
Dhoruba Bin Wahad: Joining the Black Panther Party and the Fire this Time (2021, Video)
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c/o Crea Jackson and SunXochitl Casto
Heart Chakra Guided Meditation (Audio, 9 Minutes)The Heart Chakra: An Explanation (Article)
Journaling Prompt: Write a love letter to yourself. Write about your favorite parts of yourself, the parts left behind but still continue to honor, and the parts you hope to discover. Congratulate yourself for the journey, and wish yourself luck for what’s to come. When done, if you feel called to, send it to your future self. Pick a date you feel would be particularly special to read kind words from you to yourself.
Characteristics of a Healthy Heart:Its Values and How To Tend To It (PDF)
The Fourth Precept: Deep Listening and Loving Speech by Thich Nhat Hanh
Snippets of the last Cosmic Anarchy newsletter by @WokeScientist (2023, Instagram Post)
Saretta Morgan Quote c/o @poetryisnotaluxury (2023, Instagram Post)
What if we had work that enhances… by @IntelligentMischief (2022, Instagram Post)
What if we cultivated community… by @IntelligentMischief (2022, Instagram Post)