PORTAL FOR(E) THE EPHEMERAL PASSAGE

Group Exhibition

Feb 1

Building on previous research involving the intergenerational passage of feminist Black knowledge, queer theory, sacred rituals of intimacy and wellness, kosoko has curated an exhibition centering the radical interior lifeworlds and spatial cosmologies of Black feminist presence and the altered visual legacies and landscapes they occupy in their wake.

For summer 2022, the Wexner Center for the Arts is working with Wexner Center Artist Residency Award recipient jaamil olawale kosoko to present the first exhibition curated for the center by an artist to receive the Residency Award. It’s the culmination of the Wex’s three-year collaboration with kosoko, which has already yielded a performance, educational programming, and an award-winning short film.

Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, on view June 10–August 14, invites audiences to imagine new worlds through a summer of installations and interconnected events building on Black feminist knowledge, queer theory, and sacred rituals of intimacy and wellness. The interdisciplinary exhibition presents new projects by kosoko, nora chipaumire, Jennifer Harge (a 2021–22 Wex Artist Residency Award recipient) and Devin Drake, Dana Michel, Jasmine Murrell, and Keioui Keijaun Thomas. Portal For(e) also consists of community events, a film series, performances, and an Instagram Live series. A preview party and dub night take place at the Wex on Thursday, June 9, kicking off a week of opening programs.

Centering collectivity and embodied practice, Portal For(e) draws influence from Black poets and theorists who have rendered it vital to "confront lovelessness" (bell hooks), understand the "uses of the erotic" (Audre Lorde), and survive the intersection of a body made of "starshine and clay" (Lucille Clifton), all the while being marked by the "hieroglyphics of the flesh" (Hortense Spillers). The myriad personal histories inspired by these thinkers serve to amplify the imaginative storytelling present within the Black visual performance artists featured in Portal For(e).

In kosoko’s own words, “the chameleonic nature of this collective research has always been about exploring various worldings of freedom through performance and social practice. I have been drawn closer to artists who have inspired my thinking and exploration into the shapeshifting principles that Black queer people employ to survive and heal. If fugitivity can be defined as escape without exit, then Portal For(e) is Black admission with or without entrance.”