Phylicia Ghee

INTREPID III
August 12, 2018
2:58 minute EXCERPT from 15:27 minute ritual performance; performed on Martha’s Vineyard, Oak Bluffs, at Historic Inkwell Beach
“I am I am I am, I surrender,” charcoal on 9 × 9' paper

Video documentation: David Welch
Voiceover, written and spoken by Phylicia Ghee; Sound engineer: Evan Kornblum

INTREPID is a ritual performance series in which I am using my body to move in a spiral formation while writing a series of repeated affirmations in charcoal on a 9 by 9' sheet of paper. This ritual uses movement and repetition to build new framework in the brain and initiate new neural connections. The vision for INTREPID came during a time when I was studying dance, neural plasticity, alchemy, and subatomic particle collisions. When subatomic particles collide, they form spirals. The spiral is also an important family symbol for my grandfather. It is found in the double helix of our DNA and can be found in nature, both molecularly and galactically.

A fire in my apartment three years prior to the first performance of INTREPID opened my eyes to exploring charcoal as a tool and as a residue of fire. Charcoal not only carries with it the combustive, alchemical energy of fire into the work, but it also serves as a ritual tool and purifier of water (our bodies being up to 60% water). The affirmations I write in charcoal are transcribed onto my skin.

I have performed INTREPID four times over the past five years. My body, never leaving the paper, slowly erases the words of the affirmations I am writing, and they begin to cover my skin. In this way, I am stepping into my intentions in a very literal way. What I write is ultimately erased, although not completely. The beginning of the spiral of affirmations can still be read faintly. This performance challenges me not only to accept the impermanence of life but also to find and connect with that which is ever present, can never be erased, and never dies. Along with my affirmations, the 9 × 9' paper holds my fingerprints and the unique markings made by my body. This paper holds a story of interconnectedness. A story of who I was and who I became. It is a portrait of myself, my ancestors, and the larger whole.

"By weighting the word “performance” with the preface “ritual”, Ghee not only establishes her process and the documentation of her process as something more than performative, but she also offers a critical assessment and framing for her work as an active, community-centered practice. The spaces she occupies and the histories she channels center Black experience, draw from African diasporic spiritual systems and assert intuition as an essential feature of her artistic process."
- Angela N. Carroll for Black Art In America

8:46 visual prayer + medicine for times of grief
single-channel video with sound
Voiceover: Phylicia Ghee

8:46 is a visual prayer named for the approximate amount of time the officer kneeled on George
Floyd's neck ultimately killing him. This work is in honor of George Floyd and countless others.
Moving images that overlap are anchored by one image depicting me breathing. Other images of
moments from my life both during the pandemic, and some from years prior, are layered together
creating a montage of inherited and learned restorative healing practices. How do we heal? What
does rest look like in this time? How do we endeavor to reclaim ancestral practices of self-preservation? How can we speak life over one another? How do we reconnect with joy? This is a
work of contemplation. A place to meet both the questions and the answers.
These are seeds of longevity, acts of protection, catharsis, and self, family, community, and cultural
preservation. These overlapping moving images are overlaid by the sound of me breathing and
praying for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

Essentially this is 8 minutes and 46 seconds of reverence. A visual and auditory medicine for
times of grief.

My hope is that by breathing for this time, this encourages the viewer to breathe as well;
activating the parasympathetic nervous system and shifting the internal state of the body from one
of stress to one of calm. This is also cleansing, clearing, and oxygenating the cells, ultimately
having a positive effecting on the heart, the brain, the digestive system, and the immune system

8:46 is displayed in my 2020 Sondheim Finalist Virtual Exhibition, “WE ARE THE INFINITE, DISGUISED AS THE FINITE”

Self-Guided Walk Through of Virtual Exhibition:
artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/1260335/phylicia-ghee-2020-janet-walter-sondheim-artscape-finalist-exhibition

“WE ARE THE INFINITE, DISGUISED AS THE FINITE”
July 6, 2020 – Ongoing

Experience this virtual exhibition, self-guided: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/1260335/phylicia-ghee-2020-janet-walter-sondheim-artscape-finalist-exhibition

This exhibition is an exploration in both grief and self-directed healing. It all evolved from a desire to see liberation for black lives. To see us healing and thriving; to honor those we have lost. The energy of transition and death is definitely present in the space, but it is in conversation with this idea of windows and portals. For me, the video works on the two opposite walls, “The Site of Memory” and “8:46” function like windows into moments from my life. Most of those moments were documented during this pandemic period; gardening with my Grandfather, paying reverence to my ancestors, writing prayers for my mother, making herbal remedies, exploring how I care for myself and how we care for one another during these deep challenges and moments of grief and bereavement.

The large-scale earth spiral “The Immeasurable Truth”, made of sea salt and compost from my Grandfather’s garden — which he made with dried leaves from this past Fall — appears to flow in or out of the alcove in the center of the room. This is to reference the veil between worlds; the physical and the spiritual. It’s not evident whether the spiral is going or coming. This simultaneous ebb and flow, this collapsing of time and space, to me, is like a complex poetry representing the lives and the unknown truths of history living in the soil and in the sea; making manifestation both in this realm and beyond. So it’s not so much a question of living or dying, but of traversing physical, psychological and spiritual realms; and living on through re-memory with a cyclical understanding of life. In this space I wanted to be able to touch on the inter-dimensionality and spiritual power of black lives, and to honor black, brown and indigenous lives ripped from us by the continual violences committed against us, both presently and historically.

“WE ARE THE INFINITE, DISGUISED AS THE FINITE”. This title functions as a declaratory statement, a reclamation and a threat. In other words, you cannot kill us or erase us; you cannot silence us, we are infinite, we will thrive.

I share various photographs documenting a rite of passage and hair cutting ceremony entitled “Grounding Ceremony” in addition to a mixed media (in-progress) quilt & collaboration with my Grandmother entitled “Genetic Memory” . My hair, which I cut during “Grounding Ceremony” ( and its seen laying on the earth beside me in the panoramic photograph on the left as you first walk into the space) is sewn into the quilt (7 years later) amongst photographs of my family and my mother’s brain scans printed on fabric, framed by Bògòlanfini and hung on drift wood. This demonstrates how narratives, materials & elements continue over various works, sometimes spanning years.

I created five new works for this exhibition. One of my favorite moments in the exhibition is a photo I took of my Grandmother, called “Grandma” . It’s situated above a poem by Lucille Clifton entitled, “I am accused of tending to the past.” This makes me think of my lineage and of black women being at the forefront of tending to falsified histories and constant erasures, but remaining strong in the midst of challenges sprouting from seeds they did not plant.

A Peek Into My Process:

I had to change my thinking and process entirely to work with this virtual space. I wanted to create a space that felt like someplace you could visit in reality. A space that traversed various mediums as a way to explore what sensory exploration was possible in a virtual environment.

I envisioned this large spiral coming out of it, or going into this alcove in the exhibition space. I had to begin to explore how I would bring a three-dimensional installation into this digital space. Since I have no experience with 3-D design, this involved a ton of research and tutorials. Ultimately I ended up building out the spiral in real life using compost from my grandfathers garden with sea salt. Over a total of about 25 hours, potentially more (13 hr of trial and error; 12hr of actually making progress on the piece) I photographed the earth spiral from all angles, then I taught myself to 3D scan the work and use 3D modeling programs to prepare it to go into the space.

“INTREPID II” [Group Performance inside of “Breaking Open” installation]

Performed by: Phylicia Ghee, Cheryl Ashley, Catrina Caldwell, Karene McLaurin & Karla Benedict.
3:10 min EXCERPT from 20:32 min video documentation of ritual performance
Dedicated to Karla Benedict & Anna Davis, with love & sisterhood

— Special Thank You to Peter Bruun & The New Day Campaign as well as those who contributed to the Sound with Audio recordings of personal stories: Natalie Stewart, Amber Carroll Santibanez, Ashley Williams, Anna Davis, Jamaal Colliier, Caelyn Sommerville, Cee Cee Ghee (Grandmother), Denitra Isler, Karen Ghee (Mother), Kriss Mincey, Missy Smith, Joy Vass & Morgan Baker

—————

I performed INTREPID II with four women. Three of whom were in early recovery for addiction.

INTREPID II was my first time sharing ritual performance collaboratively in this way. This was really life changing. We all influenced each other’s healing and spiritual evolution. My journey with these four amazing women has continually informed and influenced the way I’ve lived my life since; the sensitivity & compassion I have for those journeying beside me. We are all one, connected through the most pure and indestructible parts of ourselves.

We continue to keep in contact. Karene & Cheryl successfully completed their recovery programs. Karene now works in the recovery field and is doing amazing.

One of the women; Karla Benedict, sadly passed away less than a month after we shared this ritual together. Needless to say, it was heartbreaking. A lot of grieving had to take place after this experience. I gave her 9X9' work to her family to keep. Later on I noticed that in her spiral she wrote repeatedly: "I am at peace, I am at peace, I am at peace, I am at peace…" all the way out to the edges of the paper.
. . . .

“Every overgrown passion (including addiction and cravings), aggression, and signs of ignorance (including denial and the tendency to shut down or close out) is a seed for inner peace, compassion and openness…Our teacher is not separate from our own experience. My realization is that my fullest potential is here. This is the seed, and the full grown tree, this is where the work is done, on the ground level, this is where acceptance is stepped into… This place of pain, the charnel ground is the working basis for attaining enlightenment.”
~ Pema Chodron

—

“Emerging interdisciplinary artist, visual artist, and photographer, Phylicia Ghee, engages “ritual performance” as a healing modality for herself, her ancestors, and unrelated women to grapple with histories of cellular and experiential trauma.

By weighting the word “performance” with the preface “ritual”, Ghee not only establishes her process and the documentation of her process as something more than performative, but she also offers a critical assessment and framing for her work as an active, community-centered practice. The spaces she occupies and the histories she channels center Black experience, draw from African diasporic spiritual systems and assert intuition as an essential feature of her artistic process.” ~ Angela N. Carroll for BLACK ART IN AMERICA

— Decolonizing Performance Art: Phylicia Ghee Uses Ritual Performance to Heal the Generational Trauma of Black Women:
https://www.blackartinamerica.com/index.php/2019/10/23/decolonizing-performance-art-phylicia-ghee-uses-ritual-performance-to-heal-the-generational-trauma-of-black-women/