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dericashields.com https://dericashields.com dericashields.com Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:09:56 +0000 https://dericashields.com en The Reading https://dericashields.com/The-Reading-1 Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:49:11 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/The-Reading-1 <img width="2040" height="1530" width_o="2040" height_o="1530" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8f691f812ae33533e642a6c0bc6a53fdedaf97e7ed5fcddcd6f4ec325c19ba2b/WhatsApp-Image-2025-06-11-at-21.55.17-1.jpeg" data-mid="234497531" border="0" data-scale="63" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8f691f812ae33533e642a6c0bc6a53fdedaf97e7ed5fcddcd6f4ec325c19ba2b/WhatsApp-Image-2025-06-11-at-21.55.17-1.jpeg" /> On Friday 23 May 2025, as part of Voice as Landscape at Perdu, Amsterdam, we staged a table read of The Reading: A Play in One Act by Kathleen Collins.For several weeks, the artist Raoni Muzho Saleh and I drew out the sonic elements in Collins's script, which include chanting, song and prayer. Our interpretation layers the text with a textural innovation, the shifts in Marguerite’s energy/auric field vocalised by Raoni Muzho Saleh.Reader/Performers Marguerite Simpson — S*an D. Henry-Smith Helen Mills — Derica Shields Psychic’s Assistant + stage directions — senakirfa a. Marguerite’s Auric Field — Raoni/Muzho Saleh Commissioned by Alec Mateo & Lorenzo García-Andrade, Voice as Landscape 2025 Photo credit Geo Wyex Given to Cottons and No Silk https://dericashields.com/Given-to-Cottons-and-No-Silk Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:07:12 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/Given-to-Cottons-and-No-Silk “The question is, are we prepared to accept what is originally ours, and not be afraid because it is simple and given to cottons and not silk? Or are we afraid because most of the vital expression of our folk material is of African origin?” —Beryl McBurnie during a 1963 lecture Two-channel video installation, 20 minutes looped. Presented at Jan Van Eyck Academie open studios 2023, with three 20-minute performances. a/mass a mullllltitude or murmur/ation https://dericashields.com/a-mass-a-mullllltitude-or-murmur-ation Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:10:06 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/a-mass-a-mullllltitude-or-murmur-ation Installation, desk of a fictional researcher named Ackee Red, 2022. Presented with a reading for Wayfinding, Juf, Madrid, Spain. A Heavy Nonpresence https://dericashields.com/A-Heavy-Nonpresence Tue, 17 Oct 2017 13:36:09 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/A-Heavy-Nonpresence From 2017 to 2019, Shields conducted interviews with seven Black Londoners about their experience of the British welfare state. While opposed to the neoliberal defunding and privatisation of the welfare state, the interviews marked out space for Black people’s complaint and critiques of what the state describes as care, specifically Black people surviving on low incomes or experiencing poverty. In 2021, the interview transcripts were published by Triple Canopy with an introduction by Shields that analysed the co-development of the modern welfare state and measures to expel or instrumentalise Black peoples. An Attempt: Mary Hylas https://dericashields.com/An-Attempt-Mary-Hylas Thu, 28 Jan 2021 18:45:52 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/An-Attempt-Mary-Hylas An Attempt to Meet An Enslaved and Sometimes Free Woman Named Mary Hylas & How Her Children Ran With It (1754–2019)Three audio text fragments that examine property law as debated and lived during what is called Britain’s era of abolition. Commissioned for Boundary + Gesture, curated by Taylor Le Melle, Wysing Arts Centre, 2019. Also exhibited as part of Working Progress at South London Gallery, 2020. More documentation here. Like All Waiting Seeds https://dericashields.com/Like-All-Waiting-Seeds Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:45:09 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/Like-All-Waiting-Seeds Five text-based artworks installed across notice board sites in Croydon parks, accompanied by an audio guide and event. A residency and commission by Turf Gallery and Fungus Press, London, 2021. Love Letter for Seven Speakers https://dericashields.com/Love-Letter-for-Seven-Speakers Mon, 29 Jul 2019 11:40:29 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/Love-Letter-for-Seven-Speakers Love Letter for Seven Speakers, Cell Project Space, 27 July 2019 Between the summers of 2017 and 2019, I interviewed seven Black people living in London about surving the welfare state for a book-length oral history project titled A Heavy Nonpresence, published in 2021 by Triple Canopy. The commission required I write an introduction that I struggled to complete because I was at war with the distancing or explanatory norms of the introductory essay. In Love Letter for Seven Speakers, I was able to make work that privileged the voice over the page, and personal history over official records or the kinds of argumentation I was doing as I completed my introduction. Love Song for Seven Speakers became a reading under pink light, in which I could situate myself among a circle of near and far peers, friends, and teachers. Sound design & editing Shenece Oretha Voices Ivori-Kai Bryan S*an D. Henry-SmithDerica Shields <img width="2880" height="1800" width_o="2880" height_o="1800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3d354fff88fa8f57273eebe87df45c4a6e7fbfc5e4f1df842ca7500f14e90e0a/LL477_DericaShields.jpg" data-mid="47574291" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3d354fff88fa8f57273eebe87df45c4a6e7fbfc5e4f1df842ca7500f14e90e0a/LL477_DericaShields.jpg" /> Texts & Talks Referenced ‘Dahabo‘ A Heavy Nonpresence, ed. Derica Shields, Triple Canopy, 2021 ‘Sarah & Ruby‘ A Heavy Nonpresence, ed. Derica Shields, Triple Canopy, 2021 Writing Against Tyranny and Toward Liberation by Dionne Brand, Barnard College, New York City, 25 April 2017 The Heart of the Race by Beverly Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe, 1985 Lessons From the Damned: Class Struggle in the Black Community, by The Damned, 1973 The displaced tenants paying the true cost of an inhumane housing policy by Dawn Foster, The Guardian, 2 December 2016 Make a Way Out of No Way by Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten, Arika, Glasgow, 27 September 2014 Frontiers: Interview with Audre Lorde by Jackie Kay and Pratibha Parmar in Charting the Journey: Writings by Black and Third World Women, 1988 The Psychological Impact of Austerity: A Briefing Paper by Psychologists for Social Change, 2016 Public presentation by Assata Shakur, World Youth Festival, Havana, Cuba, 3 August 1997 Refrain from ‘War‘ by Bob Marley, sung by The I-Threes, Amandla: Festival of Unity, Boston, Massachusetts, 21 July 1979 Welfare is a Women’s Issue by Johnnie Tillmon, Ms Magazine, 1972 <img width="720" height="1280" width_o="720" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20f3dc9b519a9eab1260d7bd2d7692e18297fff9eb723309a07dd9b24c613af5/DE1641DA-7F63-473A-9377-1CCE062E7B94.jpg" data-mid="47577162" border="0" data-scale="48" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/20f3dc9b519a9eab1260d7bd2d7692e18297fff9eb723309a07dd9b24c613af5/DE1641DA-7F63-473A-9377-1CCE062E7B94.jpg" /> . <img width="720" height="1280" width_o="720" height_o="1280" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8d265b8e43452abf11dd6193af6ee749575df15461b299dc6c96605c0948d9c5/DD2865D8-C167-4117-9C57-BE66D83FF443.jpg" data-mid="47577197" border="0" data-scale="48" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/720/i/8d265b8e43452abf11dd6193af6ee749575df15461b299dc6c96605c0948d9c5/DD2865D8-C167-4117-9C57-BE66D83FF443.jpg" /> currently -ing https://dericashields.com/currently-ing Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:09:56 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/currently-ing currently -ing 28 february 2026Groundings on Rasanblaj with M. Jacqui Alexander “Let me say that whenever the concept of destiny is introduced, it is often immediately viewed as being antagonistic to the modernity’s free will—the misconception being that destiny forecloses will. But that’s not the case. As human beings, we are constantly making and remaking our destiny. There is really no abrogation or suspension of will, because these acts of creation require consciousness. So what happens to will in the context of destiny? This is where the Kreyòl sojème and the Spanish entregar are helpful to us as they introduce the idea of surrender and a handing over of the self. That's the consciousness. You hand over yourself to service. You hand over yourself to be a medium. You hand over certain desires to be transformed. You hand over your allegiance to supreme individualism, if this is what pervades your culture. You hand those things over so as to transform, not in any neat, prescriptive way free of raucous challenge, but you decide to hand them over. In the face of mystery, this handing over is a supreme act of consciousness and willfulness.”  5 march 2026 <img width="2880" height="1800" width_o="2880" height_o="1800" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8aebbee3efed19c10a184fc48ee8f4610214ebb2abc8b0333ad7a713f759e5b3/Screen-Shot-2026-03-05-at-18.09.04.png" data-mid="245705180" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8aebbee3efed19c10a184fc48ee8f4610214ebb2abc8b0333ad7a713f759e5b3/Screen-Shot-2026-03-05-at-18.09.04.png" /> still from Neighbouring Sounds (O Som ao Redor), 2012, Kleber Mendonça Filho [cane memory, corregidora, recife, grills, bolts, velázquez-bacon, rooftop bounce] Art Writing https://dericashields.com/Art-Writing Wed, 19 May 2021 10:01:35 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/Art-Writing Selected Art Writing Essay: An Open Weave: Rehema Chachage at Stade Museum, Amani Catalogue, 2025 Essay: Cutting Checks: Holly Graham’s 20/20 commission, 2025 Text: Alternative Interest(s): Jay Tan at Tale of a Tub, 2024  Review: Seeing the Whole: The Fantasy Architecture of Julie Mehretu, ArtReview, 2024 Review: Can Theaster Gates’s ‘Black Chapel’ Speak to a Ravaged Britain?, ArtReview, 2022 Opinion: UK Government is Policing the Right to Dissent, Frieze, 2021  Feature: No Escape Empire: Cameron Rowland at London’s ICA, Frieze, 2020 Review: Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus at Tate Modern, Frieze, 2019 Review: Libita Clayton’s Quantum Ghost at Gasworks, Frieze, 2019 Review: E. Jane’s Lavendra at American Medium, Flash Art, 2017 Interview: Barry Jenkins, Rookie, 2016 Interview: Santigold, Rookie, 2016 Essay: Bodied, Girls Like Us, 2015  Interview: Kelela, Rookie, 2015 Essay: Face Me, I Face You, The New Inquiry, 2014Interview: Larry Achiampong, Live Art Almanac Volume 4, 2013 A Heavy Nonpresence: Part One https://dericashields.com/A-Heavy-Nonpresence-Part-One Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:14:16 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/A-Heavy-Nonpresence-Part-One A Heavy Nonpresence: Part One (2017) “What is this kind of existential kind of horror that one can feel about being kind of invisible or kind of [laughter], like the heavy presence, a heavy nonpresence or something.” —Kara Walker in Dreams Are Colder Than Death (2014), dir. Arthur Jafa I'd rather live outside.                — Frank Ocean, Seigfried In the spirit of all imperfect practitioners of petit marronage, A Heavy Nonpresence is interested in Black failure — failures of assimilation, inclusion, separatism and of Black belonging in Britain. In place of political action that wants to expand the parameters of civil society to include Black people, or to bring us under the protection, surveillance, and control of the state, this series asks what is being done amid and despite exclusionary and assimilationist moves. What can we do among ourselves, maybe in secret? *First edition: Institute of Contemporary Art, London August 4 - 20, 2017 Part I: Artist talk by Ingrid Pollard followed by a screening of selected film and video by Ja’Tovia Gary, Black Audio Film Collective and from the British Pathé Archive. Both events were was followed by discussion: the first about racialised constructions of the English countryside foregrounded by Ingrid Pollard’s land/place-oriented photographic practice, and the second around welfare, anti-Black violence and displacement raised by the screening program. Part II: An afternoon of workshops, presentations, and discussions about navigating austerity, particularly housing-related benefits cuts that have pushed Black people outside of the city. Foregrounding the shame that austerity ideology and antiblackness construct around Black access to welfare, we unpicked the fallacy of independence/self-sufficiency while pooling ideas for surviving housing insecurity. <img width="1600" height="1200" width_o="1600" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b28ad79893d4bcf35601602579a0c233b3f0d9f28cbc62d6a6ec178c130f56bc/IMG_8454.JPG" data-mid="5416336" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b28ad79893d4bcf35601602579a0c233b3f0d9f28cbc62d6a6ec178c130f56bc/IMG_8454.JPG" /> <img width="1600" height="1200" width_o="1600" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9980a22271fd8879982eec9dca88f1dda9c70f71385f0cfcfb2bd4c75d27a9f0/IMG_8452.JPG" data-mid="5416339" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9980a22271fd8879982eec9dca88f1dda9c70f71385f0cfcfb2bd4c75d27a9f0/IMG_8452.JPG" />Photos: Sean D. Henry-Smith, 2017