SYLLABUS FOR BLACK LOVE
SYLLABUS FOR BLACK LOVE, 2022
Performers: Jennifer Kidwell, jaamil olawale kosoko
Cinematographers: Ima Iduozee, Sydney Lawson
Composition: Everett Asis Saunders
Editing & Postproduction: Alexis McCrimmon
Concept and Direction: jaamil olawale kosoko
Drawing from Black study and queer theories of the body, jaamil olawale kosoko’s installation brings together two new works: the three-channel video work, Syllabus for Black Love and multi-media performance installation the hold having been realized through their three-year residency at the Wex.
Staged within milieus that reflect the ancient elements—air, fire, water, earth, and spirit—kosoko’s Syllabus for Black Love is a meditative video work that embodies the shared care and healing qualities of Blackness. From a series of conversations, an intimate portrait emerges through a poetic quest that asks “What is Black love?". Arranged as a choreo-poem, Syllabus embraces the notion of ‘doulaing’ as a practice of nurturing through rhythmic and restorative gestures. Set to an orginal sound score by Everett-Asis Saunders, the three-channel work captures the movement of two dancers, kosoko and Jennifer Kidwell, as they embrace and display great affection for each other, reimagining Black queer bodies in natural settings that navigate between land and sky, bonfire and ocean, turning them into sacred intimate places.
Syllabus for Black Love serves as the ship inside which the multimedia installation, the hold, is positioned creating an experience that is both perceptive and somatic. An altar staging objects and materials composed from kosoko's personal performance archive is on display. Various fabric-covered floor sculptures invite one to spend time in the space. Aligned with kosoko's previous performances, the hold challenges fixed notions of Blackness, presenting a ritualistic encounter that offers new potentials of post-coloniality, sexuality, race, and through all this, the offering of new worldings to form.
READ SYLLABUS FOR BLACK LOVE
This syllabus imagines the process of learning outside the strict boundaries of institutions, examinations, and formal schooling.
Texts on the syllabus offer tools and perspectives for cultivating love, and specifically a Black love as an extra-ordinary everyday practice of being with self and being in the world.