_Square.jpg)
When I think about what I hope for in the future, I can't yet create the exact visual, all I know is that this mirror reflecting incorrect truths based on my black skin should be shattered. This piece is about all these questions I still have, and how being black today comes together with my ancestral roots of the past to create space to be seen and heard, I honestly don't know what that will look like because so much of this is up to what others decide to do. Will our white American neighbors put in the work to dismantle the systems that are embedded within our power structure as a nation? Will they know that they can't know what it is like to have lived this life in black skin? To fear for the life of their father, son, brothers just because they don't have the right skin color? To know and admit you can't possibly know is the first step, but then to take action to use your power, privilege, and voice to dismantle systemic racism and injustice is an entirely different step, but a most crucial one. One that has run out of time on the clock.
.JPG)
For me, in the future I hope that I can learn to live more as the person I am and the person I want to be - simply me. As someone who has survived a lot of racial trauma and pain, I hope I can choose how I go forward in the world, regardless of how others project their misunderstanding of who I really am into my sphere. So many of us have lost so much, been silenced, and broken. I want to lift up young black girls and black women - our ancestors are the heart and soul of the story of how this nation came to be and how it has thrived - and today I only want to be a part of empowering them and giving each one of us the opportunities we so deserve. I have so much love to give, and they say love is more powerful than anger, and hate - I want to know just how much more powerful for myself.
_Square.jpg)
About Liberty Worth & "Where We Have Been & Where We Hope To Be"
Liberty Worth is a native of Los Angeles- a city of grit, diversity and great natural beauty. Influenced by the power of art and nature to soothe trauma and bring peace, she creates works that reflect natural wonder and quiet beauty from both new and discarded or repurposed materials. Where We Have Been and Where We Hope to Be is her current series of quilts created as a meditation on grief, hopes, and history in response to the murder of George Floyd and protests in 2020. She constructs these quilts using scraps of African fabrics in simple blocks.
She extended this practice and created a series of videos and materials from her own work and some of the materials from the Inbreak Residency - and pitched it to a small diverse group of friends and colleagues. The participants created works of their own. Each went through the steps of learning the materials (Session 1), mapping their heritage (Session 2), honoring their grief (Session 3) and investigating hope (Session 4). Digital artists turned the project digital, writers wrote profound statements and visual artists pushed boundaries. This is their work. Liberty’s quilts, their paper & digital quilts - some of which she has created back into quilts. Each artist has written a statement about their work.
