Todays tidbits!
Found a book I used to like a lot when i was younger. Abiyoyo, illustrated by Michael Hays.
I have always adored the vibrant colors and life in the pictures. I crawled around his website, enjoyed some of the work behind creating the visual of Abiyoyo. At the bottom of the page there is a blurb and a link to Sun City, as the book was finished around the time of popular support of the South African Freedom struggle.
I was not alive then and have not heard of Artist Against Apartheid. So I am watching The Making Of Sun City ! Some way through Peter Gabriel is mentioned, of whom I know from picking up a cd at a thrift store. I make my way to the song Biko, which he wrote to honor Bantu Stephen Biko, who was murdered in 1977 by a South African security officer.
At which point I remember where my train of thought started, thinking of the exhibit I saw a few years back, The Dirty South. Amazing and immersive and I would pay a lot of money to be able to walk through again. Here's a quick guided walkthrough! I was in love with how the music and sound bled through the walls and echoed back at each other. One of the first exhibits where I really considered the placement and order of pieces, the color picked for the wall.
Honorable mention for one of my favorite pieces. Summer Breeze by Paul Stephen Benjamin. videos of Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit, the lyrics "Black bodies swingin', in the Southern breeze" next to videos of a child swinging joyfully at a playground. (This is my video!)
Which I would link, but the song is so deeply haunting it needs to be shared in full.
and finally, from a separate installation I want to mention Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste. I had the honor of seeing his magnificent Set It Off, was able to stand inside of it with the flaps closed, in the dark and feel the bass in my bones.
Another loud bass involved piece of his, with proper video and sound for you to experience is
and here is a panel he did about this piece. Room filling and soul-deep.
