Do Not Attempt to Encapsulate or Control the Rainbow and Above All You Must Not Play at God

Mixed Media, Public Art Installation, 2021

Do Not Attempt to Encapsulate or Control the Rainbow and Above All You Must Not Play at God

I created nine additional talking sticks for the We Built This House exhibition at Virginia Commonwealth University at The Anderson. One of the aspects I appreciate dearly about installation art is being able to rethink and re-formate installations as they travel to and from various locations. While creating these sticks I considered, of course the enormity of Hennrieta Lacks’s life and the HeLa Cells. All of the strife, sadness, and protests in 2020 and yet the forward movement and phenomenal growth, leadership and reach the Black Lives Matter movement has been able to cultivate…in my opinion on the foundation of the effects of the Black Panthers, Rainbow Coalition, Martin Luther King, Malcom X and many others.

I titled the nine sticks, Do Not Attempt to Encapsulate or Control the Rainbow. Yes, the rainbow in all its visual splendor and vast array of meanings, exists beyond our mere understanding or perception. It reveals the spectrum of light and is tied to the chakras within our bodies. It can viscerally enlighten the mind and invigorate our energy if you allow it.

Rainbows reveal themselves to EVERYONE and are attached to human consciousness and spirituality. For this reason I use them and the full color spectrum to talk about justice and equality for all. Placing this formation of nine sticks over the original five sticks, creates an inverted triangle representing femininity, womanhood, the earth, the cosmic world… and in this instance a black woman’s womb.

Above All You Must Not Play At God, an installation of five woven talking sticks, is created in memory or the Life Of Henrietta Lacks and the slow demise of the Hippocratic Oath. The intent of this installation is to draw attention to the continued plight of living within a black, female, body within a white-washed reconstructed world. From the U.S. Constitution to the Hippocratic Oath for whom do these documents speak of and or for?

Initialized be the actions of doctors at Johns Hopkins University, the HeLa cells were stolen from the cervix of a black women, scientifically evaluated, misnamed to conceal their true origin and then monetized for the greater good of humankind but never rightfully attributed and compensated for to the rightful descendents of the Lacks family. Yet, another insidious account of thievery and siphoning of Black Magic from the Black Body.

The branches are hung from the ceiling by rope, each woven with various fabric materials and adorned with tiny items that symbolically represent the female experience. Underneath the branches are of sliced portions of the Hippocratic Oath both the original oath and a more modern version. As most artwork, the actual branches are not to be touched. Additionally, the enshrined branches represents “that in which is precious and only belongs to self.”

I do however, welcome attendees to pick up, read, and question the varies slivers of the Hippocratic Oath and its relevance to the perception of this collective human experience, historical truths juxtaposed societal norms, misconceptions and abuse regarding the Black Body.

Follow this link for additional information about the We Built This House exhibit: https://arts.vcu.edu/community/news/we-built-this-house/