Build the VOID: a Place for Care and Rest

From 2019 to 2022, I was an Artist in Residence jumping all across the country from Bay Area Now 8 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, to the McColl Center Residency in Charlotte, NC, the Ebb and Teena Haycock Public Art Endowment at Ohio Wesleyan University, and the Galveston Artist Residency in Galveston, TX, where I was afforded the opportunity to deepen my practice, ask big and challenging questions, and expand in ways I would have never dreamed of.

These experiences taught me the power of granting space and time to creatives and what that can not only do for their practices, but push our society and culture forward by probing the unknown.

Back Porch, at Ohio Wesleyan University, is a Corten Steel sculpture commissioned by the Ebb and Teena Haycock Public Art Endowment with the goal of centering Black space, Black life, and Black history at the university.

Back Porch was the first time I was able to think deeply and expansively about the VOID and what its theoretical and social underpinnings are. If a void is a space that 'holds nothing,' by defining it, it becomes an oxymoron. In this moment of slippage, the VOID becomes a space of resistance between language - a liminal space of possibility.

While between the project at Ohio Wesleyan and the Galveston Artist Residency, I spent the summer in Detroit and was able to sit with the idea of the VOID and how to make it into something tangible. Before setting off for Texas, I used my savings to purchase a home in the Dexter Linwood neighborhood with the sole purpose of building a residency for creatives and cultural practitioners.

The Void is a liminal space of resistance that prioritizes rest and community by providing an interim residency for creatives needing respite, space to convene, and an atelier to bolster creative practice both in technical skill and professionalization.

The goal of this project is to build an Interim Residency that prioritizes rest and community. The idea was born of my time on the residency train and the vulnerability I experienced while between opportunities. Residents will have up to 2 months of time at the VOID as long as they are able to show that they are between projects/opportunities.

To get to this goal, there is a LOT of work to do. The home is in a state of disrepair and I need your help to restore it to its former glory. The project is a full-gut and we've made leaps and bounds of progress.

Our first intervention was to rent a massive dumpster to clear out the rubble from the interior of the house.

With the help of family, friends, and community, we were able to clean out the first and second floors to see the full scope of the project. We had a couple more interventions to subsequently clear the basement, garage, and back yards.

To move this project forward, I need your help to raise funds to reconfigure the first floor, re-wire, re-plumb, and sheetrock the property. I also need to install new windows, doors, and make the VOID a space that can hold community, conversations, care, and help creatives and culture bearers as they continue to dream and push our society and culture forward.