Proper install pics from the Sky High Biennial ! On an Anne Imhof installation 🤧❤️🔥💪🏾 still one month to see the show if you’re in NYC/upstate/western mass. Take a lil day trip. ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧
We finished building the structures for our 9ft tall mounds. A rough estimate of the height of the flood waters on this block, when a barge was negligently, purposefully left untethered and destroyed and/or detonated the levee just blocks from my people’s house. Each one is 25ft wide, the width of a standard New Orleans shotgun lot. They point us in the four directions, we acknowledge the waters as she has created the land we stand on, as she surrounds us on all sides. Swamp to bayou, bayou to river, river to lake, lake to sea; salty, fresh and between. Now we are preparing to fill in with soil, and then comes PLANTING!!! Our plants graciously holding our earth in place, we owe them everything. Fruit and nut trees, persimmons and pecans, jujubes and olives, longan and pomegranates, avocados, cherries, lychee, pears, rows and rows and rows of flowers. Can you see it yet? 💐 Bird towers and buzzing bees, a temple enshrining giant sculptures of deities and spirits; adorned to its highest point, maybe a kiln? Dare I say a playground? Someway to collect the rain. Someplace to store tools and the fruits of our labor. A monumental archway painted in fresco or adorned with tiles. Flags billowing everywhere, rustling of palms and whipping of nylon on our otherwise quiet block. Giant trellises covered in Katrina roses and muscadine grapes: bronze and purple of course. Can you taste it yet!? Incense is burning, offerings are laid, libations provided. The air smells.. sweet. Babies got fruit juice all over they faces. They Jubilant! A place to sit, a place to eat, a place to pray, a place to grieve. Bring a bag and carry some home. thank you @kali_adriana for your documenting so beautifully for us. Away we go 🚀🌴
Démélondo 2.5 x 2.5ft. Found shotgun siding, NOPD street barricade, dirt from my old apt on abundance street, windshield glass from a drive by at the same home, graphite on paper.
Witness. found bannister, sago leaves, clay, wood. 1.5x1.5x4ft.
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In honor of the children of Palestine, the trees that witness generations grow, and also bear scars, they hold the stories of nazi aggression. Drop their leaves in protest. their fruits sour and stunted with pain. May they cover you from falling bombs, may their trunks catch the shrapnel aimed for your delicate bodies, may you still find sweetness after it all.
Built this temple/altar of self defense & armed resistance in our show Rivulet at Antenna gallery in New Orleans. May those who dare to resist the violence of empire be covered and protected. In all lands currently experiencing the true intent of western imperialism. Building this I couldn’t stop thinking of the sadistic mischaracterization of Palestinian men in particular. May we all emerge victorious, land back, colonizers/zios/cowards/rapists/nazis/fascists go home, be removed, or be killed trying, whichever comes first.
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Together we raised just under 500 that will go toward mutual aid efforts in Deir Al-Balah for water and local farms to be able to continue provide food, and in Cairo supporting folks who’ve managed to escape the genocide in GZA. Prints will be sent by this coming Tuesday at the latest.
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Show is up till August 10.
You’re looking at land that has officially been rematriated back into my family!!!! LAND BACK HEAUX!!!!!! Land that at least 4 generations of the Petit family has lived, and set foot on. Sandwiched between Juneteenth and the summer solstice I officially closed on these lots, auspicious timing 🤲🏾. Successfully blocking an international non profit from trying to steal this land from me! 🔫🔫There are literally hundreds if not thousands of you to thank, (too many of you to fit here) for financial support, prayer, words of encouragement, strategizing, LABOR*** when we were trying to build these fuckers by hand (delusional!!). I do hope you know I don’t take it for granted. I am scheming gifts to offer yall in the future, please allow me time to devise something with the love you’ve shown me for the last 5 years. We will finish the structures of the mounds this month and begin filling with soil. And the first planting will be this fall, just in time to enjoy flowers in the spring. Lookout for a workday and picnic/fiesta likely in November. Then we will build the most beautiful temple that ever stood in Louisiana, filled with art and sculptures, offerings, libation, and gratitude, and spirit and love.
Thank you thank you thank you. It’s been a rough 5 years; and we did it together.
I’d like to particularly shoutout @sproutnola@skyhighfarmhudsonvalley@braidingseedsfellowship@soulfirefarm@blackfoodjustice@yougot2burn2shine and the Persimmon Collective who helped me reach the insane, and impossible funding gap to get this land back from the city. And yet here we are. Spirit will carve a way, i am a bitch that will find a way, I don’t accept no. We set the intention in motion, and are enjoying only the first fruits off our tree. More to come, can’t wait to celebrate with yall soon.
Xoxo
Jozéfinn 🇵🇸🛼🌸🏄🏾♀️🪷🦩🦜🪼🇲🇶
⚜️La sin de mònn san térin. Tèrm lòkupasyon astè! Libèrè Palestìn, béni rézistans-yé! Solidaríté de Lalwízyann 🗡️
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The saint of landless peoples. Cease occupation now! Free Paliiiiii bless the resistance 💋
I understand that times are very hard right now, and there are so many folks in need. I come to y’all though, to ask for your support in helping me rematriate my family’s land back into my care. Long story short, this land was stolen after Katrina, I now have to buy it back by the fall or it will go to a developer. I am to scrape together roughly $90,000, an unfair price, it is what it is. I've manged to secure a third of this milestone, can you help me match it? Your gift will go towards purchasing these 5 lots, as well as being able to purchase soil and plants to complete these beautiful mounds. Thank you for considering if you are able to give from a place of overflow. And I thank you for your well wishes, prayers regardless of whether you can support financially. It is felt, and is a help in ways you might not know. Whatever you can contribute, I don’t take it lightly… Link is included in my bio. DM if you'd prefer a link to a tax deductible option. Embrasé 🍒
🕯️🫂🍓🍧 xoxo Jozéfinn 💋🫂🌈🥥
If you were here during the pandemic, you might have supported my go fund me I started to help startup a farm where my great grandmother: Vivian Petit’s house once stood. Along with the homes of the Hubbard and Picot families. My garden was cut down multiple times by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority due to their own negligence, after I used most of my pandemic assistance toward this dream I’ve had since I was a child.
After 5 years of working on this project we still have quite a ways to go. There are still obstacles we are actively fighting. We are needing to find ways through financially to fill in these mounds, and to be able to purchase and protect this land back from the thief who stole it. The structures you see are soon to be filled with earth, and will be home to fruit trees, herbs, and flowers. These mounds stand 9ft tall in honor of my paternal great grandmothers family, descendants of the Houma nation and displaced Africans. Ive made a new crop plan for you to witness, as a quilt in honor of my maternal grandmothers from Misi-Ziibi. There will be chabutros (bird towers) and habitat for the hundreds of bee species of our beautiful Gulf Coast. Ultimately a temple will rise in the center of this all, and we will adorn and anoint together. Today mulberries and dew berries and wild onions are abundant. Cats claw and primrose sprinkle New Orleans with yellow and pink. Im impatiently awaiting the day we can plant
This has been an incredibly frustrating labor of love, I’ve been close to giving up many times. It is certainly humbling to be shooting for a dream far beyond your means and yet we still here. Thankful for the support and to know that many people believe in me, and seeing this garden & temple come to fruition. I’m so excited to welcome you soon. Im honored to come with new updates for y’all, to have made it this far, I’m tired, and broke, both broken and full hearted, mourning and jubilant, and still believe this dream will come true.
if anyone is interested in donating healthy agricultural soil toward building 8x 25x25x9foot tall mounds, we would gladly welcome your gift. 🎁😂
Thanks to all of y’all who’ve gotten us this far. 💋💋
