split my sides features new and recent works by Lola Ayisha Ogbara and Amina Ross as they consider the spatial relationship between place and interiority. The exhibition's title derives from Maya Angelou's poem and performance, "The Mask," of which she writes to honor the "survival apparatus" performed by Black folks to conceal pain through laughter:

WHEN I THINK ABOUT MYSELF

I ALMOST LAUGH MYSELF TO DEATH...

I LAUGH SO HARD HA! HA! I ALMOS’ CHOKE

WHEN I THINK ABOUT MYSELF.

Ogbara and Ross tend to this concealed space of the Black trans and feminine interior. As the intensities of living press upon our desires, fears, dreams, and vulnerabilities, they constrain how we express selfhood, leaving cracks in our inner life. But the intensities, challenges, and violence we experience are not a fact of life or "the way it goes." Instead, systems of power link these circumstances to place through the construction of space. Seemingly natural and stable, space is imagined, then produced to determine how, when, and where we move. Spatio-temporal hierarchies are built (and protected) to threaten, constrict, and erase. For those of us who are Black, queer, trans, and/or women, our experiences and struggles are intimately connected to the spaces in which we live, "Indeed, black matters are spatial matters." Through the natural forms of ceramic sculpture and the digital registers of sound and film, Ogbara and Ross spatialize the interior into an emotional geography with which we can engage.

Lola Ayisha Ogbara (cultural worker & artist) born and raised in Chicago, Illinois holds many talents under her belt, i.e. sculpture, sound, design, photography and installation art. “My practice explores the multifaceted implications and ramifications of being in regards to the Black experience. I work with clay as a material in order to emphasize a necessary fragility which symbolizes an essential contradiction implicit in empowerments”. Ogbara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Entertainment & Media Management from Columbia College Chicago in 2013 and a MFA in Visual Arts from Washington University Sam Fox School of Art & Design.

In 2017, Ogbara co-founded Artists in the Room, a collective of artists and scholars who host artists, emerging and established, in hopes of serving as a catalyst for artist development and networking. Ogbara has also received residencies, awards and speaking engagements, including but not limited to, the Multicultural Fellowship sponsored by the NCECA 52nd Annual Conference, the Arts + Public Life and Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture Residency at the University of Chicago, and If It Wasn’t for the Woman: Reimagining Portraiture and Power lecture at the St. Louis Art Museum.

Ogbara has exhibited in art spaces across the country and is currently based in Chicago, Illinois.

Amina Ross is an artist, educator and life-long learner. Amina makes videos, sculptures, sounds, and situations that consider feeling, body-knowledge, and intimacy as technologies of survival for black queer trans and femme people. Amina has presented work in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, London, Havana, Rotterdam, and The Hague. Amina learned about facilitation, world-building, and ritual through their familial practice of Lucumí tradition (Santeria), their work in queer art collectives 3rd Language and F4F, and through their time with the black solidarity economics working group Cooperation for Liberation. Amina worked as an educator at the MCA Chicago, was a lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a critic in the department of Film, Animation and Video at Rhode Island School of Design. Amina received their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and their MFA from the Yale School of Art. Amina is currently a Visual Artist in Residence at Abrons Art Center (New York, NY), A Technology Immersion Program participant at Harvestworks (New York, NY) and a 2022 NYC Community Trust Van Lier Fellow at Wave Hill (Bronx, NY).

Tour dates: Available beginning in August 2022
Number of artists: 2
Number of artworks: 16
Space requirements: At least 2,500 sq. ft

Isinmi, a performance facilitated by Lola Ayisha Ogbara
Saturday, June 4, 2022

Ogbara will present her performance project, Isinmi, which considers rest, stillness, and ceremony. While her film on view, The Perfect Servant, commemorates the invisible labor history of Black women, the performance considers Black femmes at rest, both its historic deprivation and its present necessity. Through improvisation with objects in the gallery, the performance will move through exercises that center lounging and restoration.


Sonic Rupture: songs for(e) the swarm 004, a workshop and performance facilitated by Amina Ross
Friday, June 24, 2022

Ross invites participants to contribute to Sonic Rupture: songs for(e) the swarm 004, the fourth iteration of this project. This variation includes a writing workshop, experimental vocalizing exercises, and improvised performance. Inspired by Earthward Reprise, a sculptural work on view by Ross that resembles a game board, this workshop invites participants to consider how they navigate life: "How do you balance that protection with openness and vulnerability?" During the first portion of the workshop, these questions serve as prompts for participants to write and develop scores for movement. The workshop concludes as Ross leads participants through translating their scores into improvised performance atop and in relation to Earthward Reprise.


At Play, a workshop led by Ladi’Sasha Jones
Saturday, June 25, 2022

At Play is a design workshop that proposes a conceptual and participatory framework for reflecting on the built environment through play. Jones created a sculptural kit of modular and interlocking wooden discs as a geometric response to the racial politics that shape Black public life. The workshop is organized around a set of design prompts that invite participants to create a series of sculptures in reflection of worldbuilding and the communities they call home.



“split my sides”: a listening party organized by Stephanie Koch
Saturday, July 16, 2022

In conjunction with the exhibition, Lola Ayisha Ogbara and Amina Ross developed their experiments with sound into a split EP, split my sides, produced by Stephanie Koch and coming out in winter 2022. To celebrate their work and the closing of the exhibition, The Luminary is excited to host a listening party for the upcoming release. We’ll spin the record front-to-back, and then keep the groove going with a live DJ and a raffle of five limited edition test pressings of the EP.

1. Amina Ross
   Sonic Rupture: songs for(e) the swarm, Iteration 003, 2020 - ongoing
   Multimedia installation
   

2. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
   LeAnn, 2021
   Ceramic stoneware with glaze
   18” x 8” x 9”
   Bottom: Isinmi, 2021-2022
   Grouped resting objects; Dimensions variable
   
   

3. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
   Top: Siki, 2020
   Ceramic stoneware with glaze
   15 ¼” x 11 ¼” x 11 ¼”
   Bottom: Isinmi, 2021-2022
   Grouped resting objects; Dimensions variable
   
   

4. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
   Top: Mabel, 2022
   Ceramic stoneware with glaze
   13 ½” x 10” x 9”
   Bottom: Isinmi, 2021-2022
   Grouped resting objects; Dimensions variable
   
   

5. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
   Top: Charlene, 2021
   Ceramic stoneware with glaze
   16 3/4” x 7 1/2” x 8”
   Bottom: Isinmi, 2021-2022
   Grouped resting objects; Dimensions variable
   
   

6. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
   Top: Bubblegum, Bubblegum, 2021
   Ceramic stoneware, acrylic varnish, nylon
   30” x 18” x 20”
   Bottom: Hopscotch (A Safe Space to Land), 2022
   Stained birch wood, concrete, black tourmaline,
   36” x 36” x 8”
   
   

7. Amina Ross
   Rest (Refrain), 2021
   Steel, work shirts
   Dimensions variable
   
   

8. Amina Ross
   Earthward (Reprise), 2021
   Quilted digital print on poly satin blend, machine embroidery, hand embroidery, batting, plywood, steel, casters, bolts, moss, stainless steel
   Quilting by Patricia Russell, Embroidery by ABCD Embroidery and Anngillian Cruz
   120″ × 120″ × 34.5″
   
   

9. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
   Phantasmagoria: Untitled [#007], 2019
   Illustration on watercolor, acrylic, paper, pastel, glitter
   8 ¼” W x 11 H"
   
   

10. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
    Top: A Bellow of My Laughter (pt. 1), 2021
    22.5” x 19.75” x 18.5”
    Middle: Hopscotch (A Safe Space to Land), 2022
    Ceramic stoneware with glaze, rhinestones
    Stained birch wood, concrete, textured glass
    36” x 36” x 5”:
    Within: A Bellow of My Laughter (pt. 2), 2020
    Sound
    Duration: 1:50
    
    

11. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
    Top: Nikke Vessel, 2021
    Ceramic stoneware with glaze
    23.5” x 7.25” x 8”
    Bottom: Isinmi, 2021-2022
    Grouped resting objects; Dimensions variable
    
    

12. Amina Ross
    Emotional Weather (intro), 2021
    Digital print on paper, quilting pins
    192″ × 108″
    
    

13. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
    Top: Double Dutch Queen, 2019
    Iron
    20” x 15” x 3”
    Loan provided by Adrienne Davis
    Bottom: Hopscotch (A Safe Space to Land), 2022
    36” x 36” x 8”
    Stained birch wood, red clay soil, ceramic stoneware with glaze.
    
    

14. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
    Phantasmagoria: Untitled [#018], 2019
    Paper, gauche, acrylic
    18” W x 12” H
    
    

15. Lola Ayisha Ogbara
    The Perfect Servant, 2021
    Video performance documented by On the Real Film
    Duration: 4:35