Telematic Media Arts

presents

PLAY † PREY is a two-part exhibition by Leila Weefur, with components at Telematic Media Arts and Minnesota Street Project, exploring the playful impulses, innocence, and underlying violence implicated in the experience of queer Black children in the Christian Church.

PLAY†PREY: The Old Testament, at Telematic, is a single-channel video installation, deconstructing of traditional Christianity, reckoning with colonial biblical history, and setting the stage for a queer Biblical reclamation. In the shadow of colonial book burning, the video’s tableaux punctuates a deeply fraught history where religion is mired in political power, and gives voice to the violence implicated in the experience of queer life in the Christian Church. The piece is accentuated by Wax Monument VII (The Cross), a sculptural offering comprised of 506 palm-sized wax crosses, representing the number of times “fire” is mentioned in the bible. Wax Monument VII (The Cross) is created by Weefur’s long-time collaborator, Sandy Williams IV, the star actor in their previous work, Between Beauty and Horror.

Video Installation, Single Channel, 2021

Original Running Time: 59:00 min

Weefur’s PLAY†PREY: A Gospel, featured on the main floor at Minnesota Street Project in Gallery 106, recounts a relationship between God, the Church, and a queer Black child. The spiritual narrative takes inspiration from four lyrical sermons in James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.

In that great day,
People, in that great day,
God's a-going to rain down fire.
God's a-going to sit in the middle of the air
To judge the quick and the dead.

— “The Judgement Day” God’s Trombones: Seven Negro
Sermons in Verse, James Weldon Johnson

And God stepped out on space,

And he looked around and said:

I'm lonely

I'll make me a world.

— “The Creation” God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, James Weldon Johnson

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Leila Weefur (He/They/She) is an artist, writer, and curator based in Oakland, CA. Through video and installation, their interdisciplinary practice examines the performativity intrinsic to systems of belonging. The work brings together concepts of sensorial memory, abject Blackness, hyper surveillance, and the erotic.  Weefur is a recipient of the Walter & Elise Haas Creative Work Fund and the MSP California Black Voices Project. Weefur has worked with local and national institutions including The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Kitchen (NYC), SFMOMA, The McEvoy Foundation (SF), Museum of the African Diaspora (SF), and Smack Mellon (BKLYN), and the Wattis Institute (SF). Weefur’s writing has been published in SEEN by BlackStar Productions, Sming Sming Books, Baest Journal, and more. Weefur teaches, as a Lecturer, in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University.

PLAY†PREY: A Gospel

Minnesota Street Project

October 16 – December 4, 2021
Opening Reception:  October 16th, 6:00 – 9:00

1275 Minnesota Street (Dogpatch)
San Francisco, CA 94107

 Gallery Hours:  Tues – Saturday, 11 - 6 T: 415-243-0825

ALSO ON VIEW

Beyond the Sky

Curated by Leila Weefur

Featuring films by
Kalu Oji, Lebohang Kganye, Yo - Yo Gonthier, and Tabita Rezaire

At the Museum of the African Diaspora

Beyond the Sky is a presentation of 4 short films from a selection of contemporary African filmmakers. In this collection, each film moves seamlessly between the personal and metaphysical, connecting cinematic voices across the different regions of Africa.

Finding comfort floating in uncertainty, these filmmakers pose questions — some obvious, some hidden — in an attempt at guiding us toward futurity. While maintaining allegiance to specific regional traditions, the images presented in this series reframe traditional African images into a new digital vernacular. This series of moving images suspends you in a space that conjures personal memories and locates a common language in digital gestures.