Wallhanging -Sacred Depths

African ocean memorials honor the lives lost during the transatlantic slave trade, and  serve as portals of ancestral memory, resistance, and possibility, anchoring the past to visions of a liberated future. Through an Afrofuturistic lens, these sites are reimagined not just as places of sorrow, but as cosmic gateways linking the spirits of the departed to future generations who carry their legacy into space, technology, and reclaimed identity. The ocean becomes a living archive, whispering stories of survival and power to descendants who reshape history through innovation, art, and science. These memorials are not just reminders of what was lost, but blueprints for what can be reclaimed and reimagined.

On a recent trip to Charleston, SC with the African American Quilt Circle of Durham, the artist visited the International African American Museum (opened June 27, 2023)  and learned that the museum was built on Gadsden’s Wharf where an estimated 40-45% of enslaved Africans to North America first arrived.  The structure floats on 18 columns preserving the sacred wharf site beneath and making  the museum a deeply symbolic memorial site.   Tens of thousands of enslaved Africans are estimated to have passed through this single wharf.  There are no really accurate records of the number of souls lost as a result of jumping or being thrown overboard but it is clear that their stories symbolize both tragedy and defiance.

Like the deep-sea descendants, the Wajinru, in Rivers Solomon’s The Deep who inherit the trauma of their enslaved ancestors and transform it into a shared, sacred memory, African ocean memorials offer more than remembrance—they offer reclamation. They imagine a future where the ocean is not just a grave, but a generative space of rebirth and resistance.  They resonate with the deep currents of collective memory, both a wound and a source of healing. 

Ocean memorials are emotional repositories where pain, resilience, and ancestral presence converge. Like the Wajinru, whose survival depends on remembering together, these coastal spaces remind us that the ocean does not only take—it also holds. Through an Afrofuturistic lens, these sites become ritual spaces where mourning and imagining blend, where the past is not erased but reinterpreted into power for future generations. In remembering communally, we begin to heal.

 

Quilted wallhangings allow me to intentionally embrace the legacy of the cloth that maps diasporic histories and decorates our spaces.   To paraphrase Carolyn Mazloomi, cloth is yet a soft and sometimes unexpected landing for subjects hiding in plain sight or consigned to abstraction. 

My work lies at the intersection of textile tradition and environmental memory.  I explore the tactile language of grief, resilience, and remembrance. 

The quilt is made with more than 400 individually stitched custom dyed blue ombré cotton print pieces, using the “waves” of the twisted log cabin pattern.  These pieces were then layered via appliqué  over blocks of African portrait collage prints. Quilting then becomes a way to anchor these intangible currents. The piece acts as a quiet altar,  layered and textured. Each stitch is both a meditative act and a mark of presence, offerings to the sea in honor of those who have been lost to it, by it, or within its reach but meant to provoke thought and conversation for our collective future.