Qiaira Riley
University of Delaware, Delaware, United States
qtriley@udel.edu
Keywords:art, spirituality, culture, phenomenology, heritage
Hoping to find a title that would encapsulate my desire to explore the ways that Black women and femmes complicate the notions of privacy and individualism typically associated with White cis-heteropatriarchal understandings of the domestic realm, I call this piece “A House is Not a Home: Domestic Interiors as Mojo Bags.” Inspired by Dionne Warwick’s 1960’s hit or Luther Vandrosss’s 1980’s rendition, depending on which version you prefer, I hope to consider the ways that for many gendered Black bodies, a house has not historically simply been a home. This piece primarily considers the beginnings of the Dusable Black History Museum, which started in founder Margaret Burroughs’ living room in Chicago’s historically Black Bronzeville neighborhood. Understanding Burroughs’ community centered efforts as moments that mimic the cultural preservation practices of Hoodoo practitioners, I seek to explore the intersections of collective memory, public/private space, and spirituality. Understanding the ancestral veneration practices embedded in Hoodoo as a form of cultural preservation, this work will explore the relationship between Black femme-founded house museums and Black religious traditions.This piece recalls the Hoodoo tradition of mojo bags, small bags understood as amulets that hold curated sacred and magical goods. Understanding these objects as parallels for domestic interiors that house Black material and visual culture, we can consider house museums to be architectural mojo bags. In this work, mojo bags are understood to mimic the ways that Black women interact with their domestic interiors, while exploring how gendered and racialized bodies complicate Western notions of the home. These objects are both sacred and intimate, yet represent an ancestral practice that honors a deep connection to both the spiritual and material worlds.
I consider the ways that Burroughs opened her private home to her community members to showcase the work of the African diaspora to align with a tradition of Black women complicating traditional binaries associated with our collective intimate interiors. From their roles in boarding houses to their participation in the fugitive searches for a better home, Black women and femmes have always warped the assumed notions associated with the domestic realm. Black women and femmes in America have traditionally embodied this tradition within their personal domestic interiors by interrogating the traditional binaries between public and private. While their contributions to the preservation of Black cultural spaces have often been marginalized, house museums established by Black femmes serve as vital opportunities for reclaiming, reinterpreting, and celebrating this history. Both these museums and intimate amulets offer powerful methods for preserving and transmitting cultural memory, while fostering opportunities to uplift personal and collective identity.Through their collecting and display practices, gendered Black bodies have often used the domestic realm as both an individual sacred space and communal gathering space. The architectural and curatorial practices within these museums allow Black femmes to assert ownership over the narratives of their communities in ways that challenge racial and gendered marginalization.
Our discussion circle will communally explore these themes through various questions.Participants will collectively ponder how Black femmes interrogate Eurocentric, cis-heteropatriarchal use of domestic architecture by turning private interiors into public museumsThis conversation will also incorporate quotes that explore Black interactions with architectural interiors and moments of spiritual transcendence as found in literature such as Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain. How do Black ancestral spiritual traditions influence the collecting and display practices of Black femmes?What influence does this have on how this population interacts with their built environments? How do Black femme-founded house museums preserve cultural heritage, and what role do these spaces play in shaping collective memory? How do these spaces serve as living monuments to Black cultural resilience? How might we view these institutions as architectural mojo bags?
References
Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On The Mountain
Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl: Written By Herself. Edited by Koritha Mitchell. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Editions, 2023.
