Hanging from the ceiling is a textile artwork called ‘It takes a community to hold these wounds’. It measures about metre and a half tall and just over a metre wide. It is suspended from a row of dark fabric tabs along the top. The same dark fabric forms an outer border, framing a broad strip of green and an inner border made of peacock-blue silk.
These fabric elements frame a painted image in the middle of the textile work of five Black people gathered in a living room.
Sitting in the centre of the scene is a woman with light brown skin wearing a pink, belted dressing gown and matching fluffy slippers. The armchair she sits in is upholstered in cream fabric with a swirly green design. She has mid-length brown Afro hair parted in the centre.
She stares straight ahead and doesn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. A full cup of tea sits untouched on the low coffee table in front of her.
On the wall in the background are two photo portraits, possibly of family members. In front of one of these, slightly obscured by one of the standing figures, there is a card with pink flowers and the words “deepest condolences”.
The seated woman in the pink dressing gown is the focal point of the scene, and the four other people all appear to be tending to her needs in various ways.
Someone in a green sweatshirt is standing behind her, their face out of frame, holding a plastic Afro comb in one hand and gently smoothing her hair with the other.
A teenager kneels beside the seated woman to the right of the table. Her black hair is pulled up into a bun and she wears light blue trousers and a blue-green jumper. She is placing a blue-and-white-striped vase containing white lilies on a lace doily on the coffee table.
To the left of the seated woman’s shoulder, someone in a bright orange jumper is looking at her with concern and offering her a plate of food: jerk chicken, rice and peas, plantain and callaloo.
Sitting in another armchair facing the woman at the centre of the scene is another figure wearing a lilac jumper and royal blue trousers. They have their back to us and are mostly out of frame but their hands reach over the coffee table to hold the hand of the seated woman.
On the angled label holder, in front of you if you are facing the QR code, is a tactile symbol you can touch. It resembles a rounded vessel patterned with horizontal lines, out of which four lines emerge at the top, as if stalks of a plant. On both sides of the vessel are two lines that create the impression of oversized handles, taller than the vessel itself.
Next to the tactile symbol is an invitation text by Rudy Loewe, which they will now read for you:
“A rupture has taken hold of your world. There is no time. Nothing passes, just the grief that grips you like an enveloping darkness. And in this moment (‘was it a moment? a month? a year?’), a community cares for you like loving gardeners tending to seedlings that might not last the first frost. Rubbing oils into your dry skin, cracked with mourning. Providing sweet care and shining light into that eternal shadow.
“The tactile element for this artwork refers to the ways that community can create nourishing systems that feed back into itself.”
This is the end of track 4. If you are facing the QR code, the tactile carries on behind you and then right to lead you to the next artwork close by.