In areas of extreme disruption, there is little to no room for the practice of rest, let alone restoration. When challenging the concepts of death, fear, life, and revitalization we must commune, think, and create outside of the confined parameters inflicted by imperialism or displacement. With this public burial series, I aim to expand on my previous concepts of fear and death by utilizing areas in Baltimore that have been important to my liveliness and personal development, but have also growingly been subject to gentrification/development. For two days in two-hour installments, I will remain buried alive under soil while visitors and community members can interact with my body’s mound and/or the musician’s sounds playing next to me. I challenge this endurance piece to be a reclamation of these spaces by giving focus back to Black Baltimore artists who have the inherent power to directly effect their environments through sound, emotion, and breath. I included three local vocal artists & musicians to perform self-selected pieces of their own followed by an incantation of a word I gave to them. Day one of the series included Troy Long (pianist) and BABBY (vocalist). The first location was in Baltimore’s Washington Monument park. I was buried under soil on top of a public plinth that held a recently removed confederate statue. The soil remained there as a newly formed sculpture and monument to the previous act of rest.

This is the second day of The Service performance series. Resembling a funeral, audience members sit with me and local musicians for two hours as we perform alongside one another presenting contrasts of stillness and exuberance. The first location was in Baltimore’s Washington Monument park. The second location was at Druid Hill Park, where for the past three years new land developers have been building a billion-dollar structure paid for by the taxpayers of Baltimore city without their consent, causing an abrupt and obscene disruption in the public park space and community residence. This performance was in collaboration with Randi Withani, Baltimore musician.