Terrain Exhibitions and Chicago Artists Coalition are proud to present I Am Conscious, I Am Love: Mother’s Reflection, an installation by Amina Ross, which features sculptural works that explore legacy, inheritance, and femme-folk practices. Mother’s Reflection is the first installation of I Am Conscious, I Am Love, a two-part series of site-responsive and site-specific installations staged publicly as a space for discovery, conversation, and collective strengthening.

You are busying yourselfErasing meIs this your grief?You remove all evidence of my existence…But I live in the blood of the witches that you try to ward off with that cross,They watch,from the edge of the bonfire,whispering their incantationsThey see my flesh singed,But know that I can not die,For I live in themStrong, spiritual, persistentThe stench does not throw them off,their meditations continueceaseless prayers,hands counting beadsThere’ll be no martyr tonight

--Bernadith Russell

Taking cues from her mother, Ross is prompted by Russell’s poem to call upon familial, matriarchal traditions. As homes represent legacies, Ross explores shared space within community and ancestral histories. Who was here before? Who is here now? Who will come after? Labor, material wealth, lineage, and the spiritual realm find form through Ross’s sculptural works.

Enlarged floral barrettes that emerge from the soil become signifiers of childhood and hairstyling traditions in Black culture, passed down through generations. A recessed flag brings into question nationhood, patriotic pride, and systems of oppression that oust and erase marginalized communities and counterculture practices. A weathervane is guided by ancestral wisdom, reclaiming femme-folk practices and perseverance against dominant religious and economic paradigms. The intimate relationships between patterns, colors, and texture of visual and written language combine signifiers through abstractions of home and space.

I Am Conscious, I Am Love: Mother’s Reflection is curated by Sadie Woods. You are cordially invited to the opening reception at Terrain Exhibitions, 704 Highland Avenue Oak Park, on Sunday, April 30, 2017, from 2:00 - 5:00pm. The opening reception will feature a soundscape broadcast and performance in collaboration with A.J. McClenon.

About Terrain-HATCH Public Art Residency

The Terrain-HATCH Public Art Residency is a joint partnership between Terrain Exhibitions and Chicago Artists Coalition’s HATCH Projects. Formed by their shared dedication to showing inventive work and fostering experimentation and creativity, this public art residency allows HATCH Projects graduates the opportunity to curate four exhibitions at Terrain. Shows run for a period of 5 weeks, between February and July, 2017, and are accessible and visible 24 hours a day. All exhibitions take place in the front yard of Terrain Exhibitions, located at 704 Highland Avenue in Oak Park, IL.

Adults only please for the reception.

artist bio

Amina Ross is an undisciplined artist engaged in the reevaluation of visual and written language. As of late Amina’s interests have led to an exploration of conceptions of Body and Beauty within communities dedicated to alternative modes of healing. Amina is committed to creating spaces that foster thinking, conversation, growth and love. These ambitions manifested in the founding of 3rd Language (2011-2015), queer arts collective. Currently these ambitions manifest themselves within Beauty Breaks, a participatory art project and workshop series. Amina is currently a teaching artist at Hyde Park Art Center and Co-Lead artist of Teen Creative Agency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

curator bio

Chicago native Sadie Woods received her BA from Columbia College and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her practice includes sound art and design, deejay performance, exhibition making, and collaborations within communities of difference. She has been a participant in Ecole du Magain’s International Curatorial Program and an editor of the “Harald Seemann Individual Methodology” project; resident artist of the Hyde Park Art Center’s Center Program; Resident Artist at ACRE; Artist-In-Residence at Nichols Tower Homan Square; Sponsored Artist at High Concept Labs; Resident Curator of Chicago Artists Coalition's HATCH Projects; and Collaborator of Independent Curators International Dakar Intensive. Sadie is the recipient of the Bemis Center for the Arts Artist Residency; sound designer for Brujos Web Series; Curator-In-Residence at Art + Public Life Arts Incubator with La Keisha Leek; Resident Curator for Terrain-HATCH Projects; resident DJ at Boleo at The Kimpton Gray Hotel; and Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.