Telematic Media Arts
presents
PLAY † PREY is a two-part exhibition by Leila Weefur, with components at Telematic Media Arts and Minnesota Street Project, exploring the playful impulses, innocence, and underlying violence implicated in the experience of queer Black children in the Christian Church.
PLAY†PREY: The Old Testament, at Telematic, is a deconstruction of traditional Christianity, reckoning with colonial biblical history. The single-channel video installation is accentuated by Wax Monument VII (The Cross), a sculptural offering comprised of 506 palm-sized wax crosses, representing the number of times “fire” is mentioned in the bible. Wax Monument VII (The Cross) is created by Weefur’s long-time collaborator, Sandy Williams IV, the star actor in their previous work, Between Beauty and Horror.
Weefur’s PLAY†PREY: A Gospel, featured on the main floor at Minnesota Street Project in Gallery 106, recounts a relationship between God, the Church, and a queer Black child. The spiritual narrative takes inspiration from four lyrical sermons in James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.
In that great day,
People, in that great day,
God's a-going to rain down fire.
God's a-going to sit in the middle of the air
To judge the quick and the dead.
— “The Judgement Day” God’s Trombones: Seven Negro
Sermons in Verse, James Weldon Johnson
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely
I'll make me a world.
— “The Creation” God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, James Weldon Johnson
PLAY†PREY: The Old Testament
Telematic Media Arts
October 9th - December 11th, 2021 Opening Reception: October 9th, 6:00 – 9:00
323 10th St. @ Folsom (SOMA)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 – 4:00, or by appointment T: +1 415 336 2349
PLAY†PREY: A Gospel
Minnesota Street Project
October 16 – December 4, 2021 Opening Reception: October 16th, 6:00 – 9:00
1275 Minnesota Street (Dogpatch)
San Francisco, CA 94107
Gallery Hours: Tues – Saturday, 11 - 6 T: 415-243-0825
facebook: minnesotastreetproject insatgram: @minnesotastreetproject Twitter: @MNStProject www.minnesotastreetproject.com info@minnesotastreetproject.com
ALSO ON VIEW
Beyond the Sky
Curated by Leila Weefur
At the Museum of the African Diaspora
Beyond the Sky is a presentation of 4 short films from a selection of contemporary African filmmakers. In this collection, each film moves seamlessly between the personal and metaphysical, connecting cinematic voices across the different regions of Africa.
Finding comfort floating in uncertainty, these filmmakers pose questions — some obvious, some hidden — in an attempt at guiding us toward futurity. While maintaining allegiance to specific regional traditions, the images presented in this series reframe traditional African images into a new digital vernacular. This series of moving images suspends you in a space that conjures personal memories and locates a common language in digital gestures.
ARTIST BIO
Leila Weefur (He/They/She) is an artist, writer, and curator based in Oakland, CA. Through video and installation, their interdisciplinary practice examines the performativity intrinsic to systems of belonging. The work brings together concepts of sensorial memory, abject Blackness, hyper surveillance, and the erotic. Weefur is a recipient of the Walter & Elise Haas Creative Work Fund and the MSP California Black Voices Project. Weefur has worked with local and national institutions including The Wattis Institute, McEvoy Foundation, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, SFMOMA, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Smack Mellon. Weefur’s writing has been published in SEEN by BlackStar Productions, Sming Sming Books, Baest Journal, and more. Weefur is a lecturer at Stanford University.