reflections on June Clark's Witness
Witness by June Clark. I wrote it a yr ago and edited and then left it to marinate then edited then left it and feel like sharing now cuz her work inspires me <3
What do I gain from a memory? What do I lose? We begin Witness by June Clark like sand through fingers, slow and quick. How words slipped (between? beside?) her memory. Languid walk, so my hazy remembrance of, these lines. A li(g)ned, there’s 5 memories and my favourite is the one from that scene (or) page in the color purple. Well, celie can’t be aunt ruby nor aunt ruby, celie, but they have history. Slow and quick, shuffle the city, borough, building, tiniest detail making ruby and celie show up double visioned. Hallucinations from what shuffles the tiniest detail. The city, borough, building can't be trusted in. Questioning where the re-telling panes from, the spot one occupies in time and space, Standardizing the experience in Witness by June Clark, in full view, are the feelings. Watching from such window, my peripheral sees, bricks turn house into home.
Turn to your right, 20 cigar boxes. Holding, protecting, valuing mores. How they did what up until yesterday we labelled myth. Dolls, coins, bones, hair, photos. I see the mancala game of life we play(ed). As in my ancestor and descendants. As in far away relatives come home to us in keepsake.
Turn to your left. In the corner are anointed chains. Brick dusted rust. Protecting our past, the eight of us contemplate the weight of history in the dark corner. How keen, a pause? An afterthought says, “afterlives”. Asking, “what occurs after life?”. I mean after |geographic formation| life, how (do) I live in the rolling, bulldozed flats(?).
Well we have a window beside it - again to the left- either the shape of the gallery or the intention of the project. To see out of. We’re walking into my parent’s unfinished basement. dim, but homey. And it's silent so I feel so much more (at home). Feel how spider’s webs attempt to foreclose my fingers as I searched for the click, yet once on, I don’t even know where to start. I’m ovewhelmed by choice. Unadjusted to the sheer availability of seen, of life displayed across 3.5 walls. So, I start where I am. I see sound in the fabric, told we are carried on June’s hip, from the waist up, the camera becomes interchangeable with the body, we walk in June’s alienation. And I’m in my parent’s basement, mind you. So after many years away (from)(in) Toronto, we walk in her Harlem homecoming, (estranged). From the stories in my ears, in my eyes and heavy on my heart, we recycled or, donated, or paid for pride. The dashiki didnt fade. The red grabs my attention. Its so flat that I can't help but want to touch. My senses are fulfilled. Everyone says they are back in NY. Never having been there, I take their word for it. I don’t know what each person does in those photos except for, life, living. Exiting that room trying to leave it the way I found it.
Once spirited, debates from the basement, walk up into living room, open (heart) concept extend the kitchen window to the garden. our vision exits into communion- a meeting of the minds. Together we contemplate their (photos as dialogue, as) actions. A veranda moment [to meet mother, father, godmother, aunt, uncle] between artists, family, tool, icons, dishes, more rust, more chains, more fabric. We stand in a portal excessed and empty. Conversing with spirits, speaking in tongues, we have our last supper. Passing the glass and ceramics at our table. Agriculture crystalized as survival. Litanies. The room is wide, palate, cleansing
Okay we move, have to, press on and spend about a year in Paris. My 5th birthday occurs, [redacted]’s 3rd, does too. Such, how life goes black and blue, ink frames photos.
Do I know too much? Redacted, strips margins a short attention span. “I know her too intimately”. Our people sacrifice to witness. Moment lays down for moment to walk overEvery dayOver the years. Smile at the lens to show up for those after us. Hesitantly speak. Use (of) language to make anysome sense of guilt covered anxiety. That comes, from extistential dread. And in years to come what sense will they make of the archive we leave behind? Rhetorical. In the cyclical answer.
written by
a.e.m