Of Black Wombhood
TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image 3/13-5/31 2025
DaVinci Art Alliance 6/5-6/22 2025 with sound walk and workshop 6/21
This piece of audio art is entirely constructed of ten OBW interviews; excerpts were processed through applying natural processes to the narrators’ stories, manifesting as a sound field throughout the entirety of the gallery. The piece is 100% composed of the narrators’ voices, processed by free, open source software and recycled material. Please contact me to receive links to the freeware I used to compose this piece. Special thank you to every contributor for their strength and trust, the Philadelphia Community Radio Telescope for sending each interview to the moon and back, and to the Library of Water for the reference material . Read the entirety of my artist statement below.
TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image and Da Vinci Art Alliance are proud to presentpartnering exhibitions, Of Black Wombhood (OBW), a narrative portraits project led byemerging independent curator/cultural producer, Tanya Latortue. Featuring auditory and visual renderings of 10 personal narratives, OBW explores the interiority of Black womb-bearing people through stories about culture, health, sexuality, identity, and the politicization of the Black body from the past to the present.The powerful stories from 10 individuals are divided into two distinct yet connected exhibitions with the storytellers being featured at TILT and DVAA.
Visual artist Kara Mshinda renders each story into a portrait of its narrator through her distinctive fusion of photography and collage. Sound artist JL Simonson blends interview excerpts with ambient sound and audible frequency to adapt the narratives into an experimental soundscape. The immersive, multimedia and co-institutional project includes public events focused on the project’s intersecting themes (culture, health, sexuality, identity and the politicization of the Black body) to celebrate its narrators and creative community. To learn more about the narrators and their stories, please visit the OBW project website at theblackwombhoodproject.com.
JL- OBW ARTIST STATEMENT
Every word and sound is inherently shaped by the contexts,
events, and environments that generated its manifestation, and
interacting with each vibration shifts our reality,
incorporating into us and our environment through the very
nature of our reality. Sound uniquely carries the teachings of the
past and the imagination of the future into the present.
This sound collage is a field – a continuous pattern of
vibrations, permeating the crevices of our hearts and
environments on both physical and spiritual planes. This field
is entirely created of ten voices and ten stories, transformed
through natural processes. As we enter into the field, we
resonate with each voice and word – body and spirit. The unique
information carried in each vibration transforms all that it
connects with and all futures thereafter, and we honor this
natural process of creation through listening. In our presence
together with each sound, we are transformed by each word– this
is the natural process of the creation of the universe.
Natural patterns, cycles, and resonances, through their
resilient omnipresence throughout time, are inherently encoded
into all bodies and stories. We live together amid a field of
intricate natural undulation of every magnitude, and these
movements move blood and oxygen throughout our bodies,
influencing every aspect of our bodies’ health. The patterns of
our bodies can also be found in our ecosystems, melting winter
into spring, moving oceans, birthing stars, and showing us
sunlight and moonlight every morning and evening. Impressing
natural cycles into each word amplifies each story’s existence
within a universal context. As the meaning of each word is
impressed upon us, we hear the echoes of their ancestors and
their resilient lives. Extractive and oppressive forces
relentlessly encourage us to separate our bodies and souls from
the divine context of omnipresent undulation, which isolates us
from our selves, from each other, from our pasts, and from our
communities. In amplifying these important stories and their
holographic resonance with natural forces, we honor the truth of
interconnectivity and carry its potential with us into our
futures together.
I thank each OBW participant for their energy and strength
in sharing their experiences with us, and also thank Tanya
Latortue, James Britt, Kara Mshinda, the Philadelphia Community
Radio Telescope, and the Library of Water for their
contributions to this work of audio art.