When Clouds Roll Away & Poems Shine Through

When I visited Chicago to see family and visit my Father's graveside earlier this year, I took the opportunity to fulfil a poetry commission I was invited to deliver by awarding winning visual artist, film maker and author, Theaster Gates, and  Rebuild Foundation Director of Programming, Ellen Alderman.

"When Cloud Roll Away: Reflection and Restoration of the Johnson Archive" exhibition is housed at the Stoney Island Bank in Chicago. This immense formidable looking state bank built in 1923 was bought for $1 by Mr Gates, and its renovation transformed it into awe-inspiring building and important venue for the arts deep in south side of Chicago.

www.rebuild-foundation.org

The commission was outlined as a reflective set of poems that would honour the John H Johnson 'Ebony' and 'Jet' magazine archive. I took the time to read many articles to immerse myself in the history of this indomitable publishing empire that took America by storm because of it accessibility, its agenda to highlight both the working class and middle class African American, and its impact on mainstream media and advertising in the US.

Watch the video of the making poetry using digital collage and Erasure Poetry.

A Very Brief History

It was difficult to know where to begin responding poetically to a topic as vast as a foundational paradigm shifting life event which America experienced with the creation of the Johnson Publishing empire. It shifted the perspective of what mainstream depiction, transmission and ultimately, the representation of African Americans in the US. It was an urgent production. More on this in a following blog post. Ebony and Jet Magazines sold in their billions in their 60 year paper form. In 2014 Jet went digital with online subscriptions. Ebony is still going strong as a paper published magazine, also with an online subscription and also with social media following.

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My Focus: The House that Johnson and Moutoussamy Built - Architecture, Furniture, Photography

Taking a walk around the exhibition is a photographers dream. The colouration of the furniture: cartouche being one of my favourite. The colours just popped, reminding me of the Everyman's Cinema smaller screening room in Crystal Palace. Been there? When you watch the video above you will see what I mean, and how Gates has imbues the exhibition with sign posting to gentle inquire why a particular placement of an object is pertinent to the Johnson narratives of unapologetically showcasing Black excellence, shaping cultural narratives, and proving the power and profitability of representation.

The immersive nature of the spacing afforded these bona fide original 'artefacts' from the Johnson offices space to breathe and for the public to observe Mr Gates' creative curatorial practice of positioning the pieces to story-tell the offices and furniture's design and layout.

And, to also highlight the quality of vision Mr Johnson had for African Americans and their will to aspire. He was a man of quality. This counters a narrative that black people would have been incapable of making intelligent choices about architecture and design in 1940's America. More on this later in another blog.

A Tech Exploration Into Writing Poetry

The way into the poem was through digital art. I took a map of Chicago, images of the Johnson building and erasure poetry. The architect who designed Johnson EBonny and Jet building was leading African American architect, John Warren Moutoussamy who was trailblazing architecture industry with his multi-storey designs that had never been seen before in the architecture world in the US.

Creating the poetry for this commission was an enlivening process. My interest in digital collage along with Erasure and Blackout poetry—both types of found poetry— had a chance to express itself. I was able to envisage, into words, the layered textural nature of the African American journey to full mental and emotional liberation via Johnson Publishing mainstream approach.

While making this compilation of images to show my process, I listened to the music offered up by elusive UK collective, Sault, and "Safe In Your Hands" encapsulated the ambience I imagine the Johnson publishing house would held. Although it wasn't how I had intended to write the poems, digital collage gave me a lot of food for thought around how poetry is hidden among the processes of other art mediums.

I work a lot with Canva to build websites and created branding, so leaning into digital collage has become a transformative tool. I fuse traditional modern techniques of poetry writing with future techniques of art creation and foresee myself creating a lot more of this work

~Zena~