Ode to Zipporah 2021
Ode to Zipporah is a ritual performance that was created through a collaborative process, engaging an intergenerational group of four Black women and a Black girl. This project pays tribute to the history of resistance and the ways that Black women have embodied liberation, even while navigating captivity.
Ode to Zipporah centers the liberatory practices built by Black women under the violence of chattel slavery. Black women were integral to the legacy of fugitivity: procuring supplies, harboring fugitives, delivering provisions, providing intel, and supporting other forms of resistance. These practices were woven into their daily lives, though escape was much harder for Black women than their male counterparts. Ode to Zipporah honors Zipporah, Moses’s wife, and centers her as an archetype for Black women who are the doulas of liberation.
Ode to Zipporah was created collaboratively with Laquesha Barnes, Camille Douglass, Dyonnia Hill, Ayesha Ali, and filmmaker Blak Dawn.
Listen to the artist talk HERE.
photographs by Monisade Fabunmi
Ode to Zipporah was supported by the Black Spatial Relics Microgrant, the Kreeger Museum, and the Washington Project For the Arts Wherewithal Research Grant. It has been featured at Brentwood Arts Exchange, the Afrikana Film Festival, and the Black X Film Fest.