The (Chicago) Living Altar: The Reverence Continues

4445 south Martin Luther King,Chicago IL 60653

08 August, 2021

Description

What must we place on the altar to honor the spirit and ecology of our ancestors who made Chicago home? The Earth is a living altar. Mama Earth, The Great Mama, Our One Planet, the home place that we share with Mother Earth’s other children in the glorious mystery of life. This exhibition is a 12-part audiovisual homage and tribute to our planet. The Living Altar exhibit was conceived under the direction of Soil and Shadow and the Kalliopeia Foundation and was gestated over a period of 18 months, beginning in October 2019 with the convening in Chicago of a group of twenty Black and people of color community leaders from across the country. These activists, artists, writers and academics brought together a unique combination of historical and ancestral knowledge, artistic interpretations, and sharp assessments of current political, societal, and environmental conditions and challenges. Join the Chicago practitioners of the Living Altar: Orrin Williams, Sherry Williams, Valerie Rawls, Veronica Kyle, Auntie Earthling & Toni Anderson In 2020, The Living Altar was birthed as a multimedia exhibit, a deserved platform for the participants of the gathering called Spiritual Ecology and Culture, a way to share their knowledge and wisdom, information that is critical to orienting us during these turbulent contemporary times. Under the creative direction of Noni Limar and joined by Blackbird and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art the exhibit brings together the stories of the participants with lovingly curated original and recorded music and powerful imagery. The exhibit experience is multidimensional, wrapping the audience in the sensation of sitting at the feet of their elders. Sitting in a circle created by a shared understanding, a singular act of ceremony, a sensory-rich moment that is a catalyst of transformation.