Upon Your Arrival, We Celebrate You

creative contribution

Darryl Deangelo Terrell

artist statement

In this work, you are introduced to a celebration of your arrival in a sacred Black space—intentional and untouched by whiteness or any power structure that inflicts pain, trauma, or blight upon the Black body or mind. You are now in “elsewhere.” You have passed through golden portals and heard the sounds of trumpets, jazz, house music, and techno; the sizzling of bacon in a hot cast-iron skillet on a Saturday morning; the popping of grease as your mother presses your hair before Sunday service. This is a celebration for you. Welcome to elsewhere. You can breathe now.

In this series of six images, you find a depiction of a ring shout—a historical practice used by enslaved Africans to celebrate moments of significance. With this context, I perform a ring shout to celebrate freedom, a freedom for all Black people who have entered a space where we can all breathe. This space is called elsewhere—a mythical realm beyond the horizon where our ancestors took flight. It is not a tangible space but a mythical one, which I am continuously building under the guise of Black liberation and world-building.

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