LusaHumma: Land of the Black Red
The method by which we index the world originates from a Eurocentric perspective birthed in colonialism, one that has systematically negated the infinite relationships humans have developed with their surroundings, and the boundless ways we have connected to nature, space, and time.
In LusaHumma: Land of the Black Red, Utē Petit conjures a territory where Black and indigenous communities reclaim their connection to the magical essence of land in its wild state. Drawing, sculpture, quilts, and installation reinvent a physical and spiritual enclave straddling the Misi-Ziibi river and its wetlands: a place where reverence for native species and harmony with one’s surroundings are intrinsic to life, where the boundaries we create between species, spaces, and beings crumble.
Utē’s work possesses an incandescent force that seeps into the most hidden corners of one’s certainties. This is not folklore or worldbuilding. It is resistance, and survival; the manifestation of a primal force too powerful to be expunged.