creature comforts
from group show Self-Assembly
at LUMP Gallery, Raleigh NC // 2022
“At stake is not recognizing antiblackness as total climate. At stake, too, is not recognizing an insistent Black visualsonic resistance to that imposition of non/being.”
Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Antiblackness. When having to live in a constant state of survival—a state of fight or flight—there reaches a point where we must construct utopian spaces from whatever materials we have around us.
Creature Comforts is an installation of synthesized sanctuary. It is an investigation of the poetics of survival-based home decor, prioritizing comfort, cosmos, and futurity in the endless ambient of black and queer death in america.
It’s space for preservation and preparation. Many of the materials used are second-hand, found, trash, or otherwise unprecious. The everlasting plastic that is bound to this earth for hundreds of years. This is the material we will scavenge for in the future. This is the material we will repurpose when we can no longer produce anew. Even in the utopian priority of comfort, there is practicality and survival. The wallpaper is emergency blanket. The rope from the ceiling is a versatile, high-visibility para-chord. The side-table for a vessel is a stack of cinder blocks, ready-to-use raw material for any sound bunker.
These creature comforts are made by hand, slowly. Rhythmic crocheting, clay between fingers, braiding plastic, growing hair. To make something slowly is to embrace contemplation, care and time. To make something slowly is to meditate, refusing thoughtlessness, hyper-production, capital, and western centerization.
