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Featuring Work-In-Progress by High Concept Labs Artist in Residence 2021, Aaliyah Christina Supported by High Concept Labs & The Aura House.
About this event
praise mother: a (N) spiritual is an interactive installation and work-in-progress performance by Aaliyah Christina featuring research, poetry, autobiographical materials & sounds, and liturgical improvisation. It explores themes of mental health, grief, and mother/daughterhood.
With much care for witnesses and listeners, mentions of depression, anxiety, suicide, abortion, and death will occur.
Four showings, 8pm, 8:30pm, 9pm, 9:30pm
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During her residency at High Concept Labs, Aaliyah Christina set out to rediscover her journey as a child and adolescent living with depression and social anxiety. She continued the ongoing (re)discovery of her mother as herself with and without the task of Black single motherhood. She considered her own peak into motherhood (or her own refusal of motherhood). The weight of being someone's mother by yourself and for them seems to be but only a challenge. How do you cope when you're alone? Where do you go to breathe? Who do you turn to for answers if not God themself? How does the beauty of raising another living being to see you as you see them lift you up without holding them down to reach the Sun?
Aaliyah bookmarked and studied psychological journals from Dr. Rahshida L. Atkins, Nada Goodman, Deborah, Jones, Carlye Kincaid, and Jessica Cuellar if only to deeper understand the cross-pollination of socioeconomic inequity and misogynoir. She also cherished the words of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Assata Shakur, Morgan Parker, Danez Smith, Warsan Shire, and a few more if only to sit closer to the relationship of Black matriarchy and the hoods of child, sister, mother, and daughter (and yes there are distinctions). Aaliyah welcomes you to sift through her searches, read some words, listen to soundtracks of southern childhood & mid-2000s teenage angst, write your own words, and witness a spiritual reconfiguration of the physiology of grief, healing, and metamorphosis.
"There is liberation in the healing and freedom comes in the (un)learning. I believe life is the process and death is the transition."
Following the journey of 2021's High Concept Labs residency, Aaliyah Christina plans to dive into community building with adult children of single parents to usher and foster growth between Black families and tools to examine, confront, and survive mental health journeys. With support from The Aura House, the Praise Mother Initiative will organize support groups on the South & West sides of Chicago for single parents and those raised by them to discuss experiences, write letters to self & each other, and create artworks highlighting the process of accountability & healing.
About the Artist
Born in Ruston, Louisiana and raised across Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas, Aaliyah Christina creates and supports performance work as an administrator, curator, movement artist, and writer. She improvises dances and writes poetry/prose about power/love, mental health, and Blackness as a resident on the South side of Chicago. Revering her roots in the American South, Aaliyah considers Chicago to be the first city she chose as home and the first place to accept her in all of her truth.
As the Artist Programs Manager & an Associate Curator at Links Hall, she ensures the voices of artists are centered through programming & creating new works. Aaliyah consistently supports and collaborates with Chicago's community artists & organizations including, but not limited to Keyierra Collins, Darling Shear, Assata's Daughters, The Fly Honeys, and Chicago Dancemakers Forum. Alongside her work at Links Hall, she is a Co-Organizer & Content Curator for Performance Response Journal.
About High Concept Labs
High Concept Labs (HCL) strengthens the creative sector by providing accessible residency programs for artists across disciplines interested in experimentation, discovery, exchange, and risk. Through these residencies, HCL meets artists where they are while promoting visibility for the creative process and advocating for critical investment across every stage in the development of new work.
High Concept Labs is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and by a Grant of U.S. Department of Treasury funds through the City of Chicago. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Treasury or the City of Chicago.