The Undoing

"From tangible mixed-media work to performance art, the artworks were richly exhilarated and undergirded by the spectacular. What we encountered at the Loophole was a collective praxis committed to remembering, reconstructing, and reconvening, with the goal of centering our elders." |

From Edna Bonhomme, via Public Books /

Then and now, art and scholarship, on their own, cannot and will not solve the problems we have inherited. But we don’t have much at all if we deny ourselves the possibility to create new visions of the world we want through text and (moving) images. Speaking with filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary, curator Legacy Russell asked, “How do we care for Black women in the frame?”

The Loophole of Retreat’s origin comes from Harriet Jacobs, who lived in a space bearing that name after her self-manumission. Escape is the trigger, and the scheme is simple: when Black Americans come together, we must reflect on, as Toni Morrison queried, those for whom we are responsible. Like Jacobs’s, Morrison’s ghost floated above us during this retreat, especially as curator Negarra A. Kudumu reminded us, citing Morrison, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.” | Read the FULL ARTICLE.