Anansi
Rootwork
March 30 - April 14, 2024; Thursday - Sunday 12 - 4 pm .
To schedule an appointment outside of these times, please email team@levelground.co.
Rootwork is a body of remembrance that serves as a reminder that we must continue to purge ourselves of colonial memories and heal our spirit from ancestral wounds. This offering not only creates a space where communion with the ancestors can take place, it explores what it means to remove Black subjugation from kink/BDSM while repairing our relationship to nature, ritual, and ourselves.Anansi believes in the liberatory potential of kink and BDSM for Black bodies. Through these practices, we are challenged to center consent in our daily lives, and redirect our attention to ourselves by dedicating time and space to cultivating new positive relationships with our bodies, the environment, our communication, and our relationships with others. Most BDSM spaces are white centric and cis-heteronormative, leaving a lack of visibility and accessibility for anyone who identifies outside of those two narrow scopes. We must continue to take up space and curate inclusive kink environments that feel safe for Black bodies to explore in.With a focus on bondage, impact play, and the Black bodies relationship to rope and the natural environment; Rootwork is composed of objects, activations, and video installations that use braiding hair, dirt, latex, rope, and excerpts from three rope bondage scenes featuring Sur (the dom/rigger) and Noname (the sub) to tell stories of consensual bondage, healing of ancestral and generational trauma, a return to play, and what it means to tend to the meat suits we occupy through aftercare.Our rest together is in the rootwork.
Artist Statement
Kyla Carter (Anansi) is a Liberian-American, Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist (occupied Tongva land) mainly working with textiles, video, and performance to create bridges between reality and memory, allowing new modes of myth-making to take place. In a world where Black bodies are relentlessly exploited, policed, and violated in ways that deny autonomy and leave Black people perpetually navigating pain and trauma, their work aims to liberate Black bodies by honoring their autonomy and creating a space in which communion with the ancestors can take place. Their lens as a Black, queer, trans nonbinary being informs their work, which is rooted in the exploration of Black liberation through kink and the centering of consent, shapeshifting, the healing of trauma in the body, self love, and death.
Dig Deeper
Explore the critical, creative, and imaginative foundations of Kyla's work by exporing their Residency Syllabus, "Rootwork"Accessilbity & COVID Policy
Click here for Public Transportation Options to LA Artcore Union Center for the Arts:
Bus Stops: Dash 1X, Dash A, Dash D, 30, 33, 40, 68, 92, 330, 442, 600, 733 (many more)
Metro Stops: Gold line, Little Tokyo/Arts DistrictCOVID
Masks will be provided and are encouraged (but not rquired).Please contact us at team@levelground.co if you have specific questions regarding accessing this space.About the Residency Program
Every year, Level Ground's Residency Program provides a space of experimentation, collaboration, and mentorship for a new group of emerging artists who have been historically marginalized from the art world. The artists, who create work at the intersections of identity, are provided with resources and guidance over a year-long cycle. The program culminates in what is for many residents, their first solo gallery exhibition.