Adia Skykes & Kushala Vora: Something from Something
@ ENGAGE Projects
864 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
Opening Friday, July 21st, from 6PM - 9PM
On view through Saturday, August 26th
A conversation in Kushala’s studio led to a collaborative process that rekindled a friendship and he immense possibilities that come with being in thought partnership with one another. Much of our conversations were meanderings through numerous interests that very often returned to our connection to trees. For Kushala, the cool canopy of a Banyan tree was a reminder of a curious place created by a Hirda Tree where her parents first sold ice cream and fruit products. The canopies served as a place of play and sustenance, rest and wonder, gathering and solitude.
For myself, it was a reach back into my childhood hiding from the hot Georgia sun under the sprawling branches of a white oak tree with cousins during my summertime visits. We would meet up in that shady spot for brief interludes to scheme before getting back into trouble and, later, meet back up there to craft stories to get out of it.
The trees with their leaves, branches, and root systems shifted into a beautiful metonym for spaces of community building, gathering, and conversation as more stories were shared. We continued to explore and articulate the complexity of being in relationship with others and the world around us through what we saw cultivated at the base of these trees—a meeting place for social and political organizing, resting place, protection from the elements. Something from Something is a pursuit to find what we don’t yet know but, unlike pulling “something from nothing”, we intuit that it is born from past experiences, teachings, moments, fleeting thoughts,
or spiritual downloads that have not yet woven themselves into a legible thought.
Something from Something invites you into our collaborative process of making and contemplation that is at the center of our musings, to be comfortable in not knowing but yet being persistent in finding, and to be open to slippages and wanderings. We invite you to sit with us under the tree and continue to think about the arboreal possibilities of our relationship with the unknown with each other.
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Tags: Adia Skykes, Adia Skykes & Kushala Vora, Chicago, ENGAGE Projects, Kushala Vora, Something from Something, West Town
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