By VO VO

Part poetics, part didactics, ASYLUM TOO exhibition by Nat Turner Project (NTP) brackets a five-year period which began with Asylum, an installation active in September through October 2016. Described as "both a rupture in the national silence and a public and private contemplation of the value of human life" – a video was compiled of portraits of folks killed by police was showing on repeat. 

Throughout the course of the exhibition, Asylum, photos of more victims of police violence were added. The originally three-minute video was extended to nine minutes, a prayer/meditation demonstrating urgency through its steady growth. While the content of Asylum invited visitors to memorialize and mourn those lost, its context – a bathroom stall – undeniably confronted viewers with a reflection on the societal and demonstrated worth of these lives lost so callously, by the hands of the state and the so-called justice system.

Similar contradictions and ironies through framing are pulled forward into the current show. Five years on, Asylum Too urges: “What is the value of a public outcry in the aftermath of failed metamorphosis?” 

Posed in this specific way I pause to ponder that “v” word again and notice a thematic thread between the three installations that make up Asylum Too. A video, a newspaper, and a sculpture provide multiple moments where one is interrogated around who continues to benefit, profit, lose and/or suffer 18 months after global Black Lives Matter uprisings. From the unrelenting premature and violent ends to Black lives by police. 

From multiple dimensions, these works point to unchanging entrenched systemic anti-Blackness and the ways in which tangible, observed outcomes feel predetermined. When does a public outcry do more than educate and inform (and serve) a dominant, mainstream culture? How does increased awareness and a well-used slogan reverse a killing, or lengthen a life? Can a revolutionary and abolitionist zeitgeist avoid snapping back to the equilibrium of the status quo? As NTP points out, this metamorphosis has failed.

The Daily Insurgent is a newspaper, a complex patchwork quilt of acerbic conceptual proffering. Answers are not offered, many containing glints of sharp humor and satire. Black Matter, again renders this dimension of value absurd, and generously provides a wistful, crushing alternative present for those tumbling endlessly through our current hell scape. When experiencing NTP art works and exhibitions, there is a dynamic range between discomfort and enlightenment, implicated and understood, scrutinized and seen, called out and held. It is refreshing and sobering to see NTP vision and voice, loud and clear in Asylum Too. Try to escape the discerning squint of Here Again / Are We There Yet? as you walk in the gallery door, I dare you. 

ASYLUM TOO is showing until Dec 19, 2021, at Well Well Projects, in Portland OR.

Nat Turner Project are Melanie Stevens and maximiliano.

Vo Vo (they/them) primarily works in textiles, embroidery, weaving, video, and furniture building. In their installations they seek to interrogate power dynamics, structural oppression, challenge histories and realities of imperialism, white supremacy, and colonization. They continue to explore support strategies and models of community care within a post-traumatic social landscape, focusing on the resilience of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, and disabled communities.