DANA DAVENPORT AND JAZMINE HAYES

MUCH LOVE

Curated by Kiara Cristina of Processa Art

March 24th - April 23rd, 2022

MUCH LOVE presents 15 works by multidisciplinary artists Dana Davenport and Jazmine Hayes that speak deeply about confronting collective, personal, familial grief with acts of meditation and care. The exhibition space, which is curated to convey one’s grandparent’s house filled with photos of loved ones, is meant to hold the works with nurturing energy and serve as a place of comfort, especially for the Black community and women of color. Themes that are woven into the fabric of the work and space allude to acts of acceptance, release, labor, protection, and preservation. The pieces highlight these themes by nodding to passed down written, visual and cultural systems of language and communication. To honor these themes and ancestral practices, Dana Davenport and Jazmine Hayes utilize braided hair either as a direct medium or as an essential part of their artistic process to hold space to grow from and meditate on their narratives.

In the Box Braid series (2016 - present), Davenport creates domestic objects out of synthetic braided hair such as house slippers, vases, and chandeliers. For the Box Braid Chandelier pieces, she welds the steel structures herself, carefully placing each braid, and adorning the forms with beauty supply ornaments and clay molded into Korean phrases such as 여름 훈녀 - Hot Girl Summer and 블랙파워 - Black Power. Davenport incorporates the Korean language as a way to connect her lineage, and consider the implications of braided hair as it sits on the beauty supply shelf and how it is activated in the hands of Black folks through love and labor. Fabricated with black and blue ombre braids and embellished with crystal clear beads, Davenport’s new work titled Box Braid Chandelier #5, 한 (Han) - collective grief and resentment we carry because of oppression (2022), reflects on past generations while healing in the present and mapping the future. With glimmer and awe, Davenport addresses this deep grief with softness and tangibility, creating space for repose.

Hayes uniquely approaches paper as sculpture with her series, Coded (2021- present). Her larger body of work expands on narratives of matriarchal practices of collective care, ritual and cultural traditions that connect histories of the African diaspora. In this new series of work, Hayes uses a debossment method on paper where braided synthetic hair is patterned onto a flat surface to create a collagraph. The pressure of the collagraph and paper running through a printing press contextually questions what it means to puncture and to rupture. These well defined permanent relief patterns reveal a formation of lines that transcend time as they are reminiscent of ancient scripts and languages connecting past and present technologies of craft and code. Code 10 and Code 11: A divination (2022), are touch pieces designed to be reminiscent of braille defined as “a system of touch reading and writing for blind persons.” Just as braille is meant for a specific group of people and defined as code rather than language, Hayes is communicating nuances of language and code while protecting and preserving. These nuances are not intended for just anyone to discern. The abstraction of the work and codes within them provide a bond of protection, creating a secure destination for meditation.

The odes to tactility and labor found within Davenport and Hayes’ work honors the ways in which their communities, families, and ancestors have preserved their histories even when faced with unjust systems and acts of oppression. Using their hands to move these histories along with the emotions they carry, the works are activated with intense energy and spirit. We can see how the artists focus on the importance of tactility within the exhibition’s meditation room at the back of the gallery space. In the video performance piece, hi-ye (extended version) (2020), Hayes creates soothing mantras with her voice and moves repetitiously using her hands to activate and connect with the soil. The piece is an ode to the rituals practiced when one is uprooted from their foundation and the restorative acts of regrounding through breathwork, dance, and sound. Davenport’s video pieces, Beauty Supply ASMR (2022), sit on the floor of the meditation room, welcoming visitors to ground themselves while experiencing the calming sounds of combs, rollers, and door knockers – focusing on the tactility of the objects, their tunes, and the hands that activate them. Considering traditional tools of self-care through beauty and ritual, Davenport incorporated ASMR as a contemporary tool to enter a state of rest and relaxation. The video pieces emphasize how our hands are utilized to activate objects and environments, shift energies and serve intentional purposes. The video pieces and physical works are meant to provide visitors a safe space to accept and release, and thus meditate on personal and collective experiences with light and grace.

Powerfully making the intangible, tangible... The artists meet these deep histories and internal shifts with a balance of softness and security, vulnerability and protection, labor and rest. The work and exhibition provides space to call in and let go. To mourn and grief over what and who was lost through time. To shed and release. To love.

Text By Kiara Cristina