LA VAUGHN BELLE: BEING OF MYTH AND MEMORY, a catalog that follows the exhibition of the same name which ran from December 2, 2023-January 13, 2024. The catalog features brilliant essays by its curator Erica Moiah James, PhD and scholars Tami Navarro, PhD and Hadiya Sewer, PhD, as well as exquisite documentation of the exhibition and La Vaughn Belle’s work. As the first major publication of her work, the catalog captures the range of Belle’s artistic practice that spans photography, lyric film essays, painting, sculpture and installation.

In the wake of catastrophic histories, La Vaughn Belle’s generative practice is activated by a belief that myth and memory are not only foundational to collective identity but are necessary for life. Her work explores how does one live, thrive, dream about futures when so much of one’s memories have been erased; when remembering requires our bodies to relive the violence and shame of the past, making forgetting a form of protection? How do we live fully when the landscape we encounter daily holds histories of our subjection? And how might we craft postcolonial futures in this landscape, the same arena as our abjection? Belle’s work invites audiences to imagine a world where the weight of history is lighter and one can step into a liberated future, unbound.

This catalog was funded by CFVI and the National Endowment for the Humanities and produced by CMCArts.