Watering Place
curated and in collaboration with glyneisha, featuring artists, Patricia Bordallo Dibildox, Lizbeth de la Luna, Gabrielle Flores, SHENEQUA, Jada Patterson, and Aquetzali (Kiki) Serna
installation view, botanical inks, furniture, found, gifted, and gathered matrilineal artifacts, mixed media collages
October 9, 2020 - February 2, 2021
Kansas City Crossroads Hotel Art Gallery, organized by Hesse McGraw, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and El Dorado
photos by Patricia Bordallo Dibildox
Honoring the connectedness of the land to the African diaspora, Watering Place is an homage to plants as a source of eternal growth for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. Watering Place materializes the Black interior and home garden as a space marked with resilience, reimagination, and rebirth influenced by spiritual and practical beliefs.
Within a backdrop of botanical inks made from foraged and gathered goldenrod, hibiscus, black walnut, juniper berry, and turmeric, the selected works of artists, Patricia Bordallo Dibildox, Lizbeth de la Luna, Gabrielle Flores, SHENEQUA, Jada Patterson, and Aquetzali (Kiki) Serna, adorn the gallery walls of the Kansas City Crossroads Hotel with careful placement and consideration by curator and exhibition collaborator, glyneisha.
The works exhibited present a range of wall tapestries, ceramic works, natural hand textiles including hand embroidered beading, and paper mache flowers, celebrating and in conversation with the Black interior through plants, herbs, minerals, matrilineal objects, family heirlooms, furniture, and collages. Watering Place asks us to consider the privilege within the act of finding home elsewhere and in this case - the hotel room. Watering Place also positions us to see the ones who have a hand in making home for us elsewhere. Watering Place is an offering, a safe space, an interior made for and by the unseen - positioning how we can find home within the acknowledgement of the land and customs that have held us.