AUG 26 – Do or Die: Affect, Ritual, Resistance

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art presents DO or DIE: Affect, Ritual, Resistance featuring the work of Fahamu Pecou. This exhibition will be on view at the Halsey Institute August 26 – October 8, 2016. Admission to the galleries is free.ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
This solo exhibition features the work of Fahamu Pecou, an artist profoundly involved in exploring the state of Black existence – life and death – today. Violence in our society is endemic and pervasive. Undeniably Black bodies are disproportionately …affected, through the shameful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow to current day shootings – the massacre at Charleston’s own Emanuel AME church in summer 2015 sadly just one tragic example of many. In the midst of this Pecou asks, “Under looming threat of death, how might we inspire life? Through what mechanisms could we resist the psychological violence and despair inspired by the threat of violence and usher in hope?” Or how might art serve as a “space of resistance?”

DO or DIE: Affect, Ritual, Resistance serves as one artist’s action in opposition to these overwhelming societal forces, seeking instead to elevate and re-contextualize Black life and death. Through performance, painting, drawing and video Pecou reframes our view, incorporating references from Yoruba/ Ifa ritual to cultural retentions of hip-hop to the philosophy of Négritude, and through this shapes a story that seeks to affirm life via an understanding of the balance between life and death.

 LEARN MORE: http://halsey.cofc.edu/exhibitions/fahamu-pecou/