Say their names: Anna, Ben, Betty, Bram, Caesar, Cato, Dick, Dinah, Dyna, Flora, Grace, Harry, Isabella, Isaac, Issack, Jack, Jenny, Mary, Mercy, Nan, Nero, Samuel, Susan, Tom, Yaft.
On Sunday, June 9, we gathered in a circle with my bare feet grounded on the green grass in the backyard of the Historic Lefferts House in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York. After the third time saying each name, I gently poured water from a jar filled with herbs, then burned sweet grass to bring in the good spirits and sage to keep away negative energy. Three is divine and a continuous cycle: body, mind, and spirit—knowledge, wisdom, understanding—birth, life, death—solid, liquid, gas.
From our lips we released a sonic energy in unison, saying the names of the known twenty-five people who were once enslaved at the Historic Lefferts House between its construction in 1783 and the abolition of slavery in New York in 1827. To pour libation. A connection and honor to those who came before us, to the earth, to the rhythm of the universe, to open the road for something better so that we may never experience this type of brutality again. I learned this ritual as a child, so on this day my eighty-year-old mother opened the space; in her rich Krío words, she explained the meaning of the ritual that we would collectively do.
When I was asked to be the first artist-in-residence at the Historic Lefferts House, I knew that I had to do something to honor the ancestors who were enslaved there. Ancestral Whispers (2024) is an altar; it is an honoring; it recognizes the humanity, wisdom, and intelligence of each person who witnessed the horrors of slavery inflicted by the Lefferts family. It also sheds light on the rich Indigenous ancestry that people of African descent come from, while paying homage to the Lenni-Lenape who were forcibly removed from their land.
I am confident that systems of colonialism and enslavement correlate with the drastic effects of climate change. Will we continue to collectively live in disorder and non-rhythmic, hierarchical violence? As an artist, it is important for me to tap into Indigenous intelligence in order to think about futures outside of the backwardness of a colonial construct. Perhaps when one stands within Ancestral Whispers there is an opportunity to meditate on the way in which Oya, the wind, dances with each textile; to feel immersed in waters; to imagine our oneness with the universe, Earth, and each other; and to actively think of new ways to obtain an equitable and sustainable future for us all.
