Noticing The Preconditions For __

2021 - Ongoing
Video, sound, photography, custom database
See work online here.

"The future arrives in pieces. To build it, we must learn to recognize where it has already arrived. But to hold it requires the endurance of shared rituals."

Noticing The Preconditions For ___ is an experiment of durational correspondence between artists Mimi Ọnụọha and Romi Morrison. In the project, both artists search for traces, or “preconditions,” of fleeting moments, both experienced and witnessed, that reflect deep and revolutionary care. These “noticings” are translated into a digital artwork that is sent to the other; both create new iterations of the work until the original sender notices something new, at which point a new chain of work and iterations are initiated. The project is both call for close and careful attention to the world, and enactment of the models that Black cultures provide for demonstrating ways to care and hope in spite of chaos, pain, and unpredictability.

In its latest iteration, Noticing The Preconditions For ___ takes the form of an archive, indexing various passing moments of care that each artist notices in their daily lives. The precarity and isolation of this past year has shown that we are living in the tension between two worlds, one that is desperately trying to reproduce itself and its power, and a new world not yet allowed to be born. In this gulf between what has been and what needs to be, this piece was born.

This work is currently in progress with support from Transmediale Berlin, Akademie der Kunste, and Goethe-Institut.

This work is created in collaboration with Romi Ron Morrison.