Cauleen Smith: Mutualities

Cauleen Smith: Mutualities
17.02.2020 - 17.05.2020

Cauleen Smith draws on experimental film, non-Western cosmologies, poetry, and science fiction to create works that reflect on memory and Afro-diasporic histories. Mutualities presents two of Smith’s films, Sojourner and Pilgrim, each in a newly-created installation environment, along with a new group of drawings collectively titled Firespitters. The films unfold across several important sites in Black spiritual and cultural history, weaving together writings by women from different eras, including Shaker visionary Rebecca Cox Jackson, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the 1970s Black feminist organization Combahee River Collective, and experimental-jazz composer and spiritual leader Alice Coltrane, whose music also forms the soundtrack for both films. This gathering of voices enacts a shared Black female subjectivity, the collective strength of which is expressed in Smith’s poetic use of the camera and light as improvisational instruments to reveal how invention, creativity, and generosity can be resources for transformation and regeneration.

Cauleen Smith: Mutualities is organized by Chrissie Iles, Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, with Clemence White, senior curatorial assistant.**