The TILT Institute presents Of Black Wombhood

Curator Tanya Latortue's original proposal intrigued me. It provides a clear timeline in American history on how the Black woman's identity was consistently tied to her reproductive organs. Eighteenth and 19th-century trafficking victims endured forced breeding. The “father of gynecology” James Marian Sims forcibly experimented upon Black female bodies. In the 1950s, John Hopkins Hospital harvested cervical cells from Henrietta Lacks without her consent—cells that would become the mainstay of medical research through the present day. Even today, in the United States, Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.

You can dive deeper through the Of Black Wombhood website, which contains an oral history collection featuring 15 Philly-based subjects who define what wombhood means to them in the 21st century. (Latortue is careful to not define wombhood as biological or exclusively tied to the cisgender body.)

Honoring the Black subject through surrealistic art

Photographic collages of the interview subjects created by Kara Mshinda anchor the in-person exhibition. I was blown away by Mshinda's cohesive series. While working on my Master’s, I became a fan of surrealistic mixed media and collage art. When well-done, as this show is, it’s evocative, fresh, and emotional.

These collages are seemingly simplistic photo portraits until you look closer. Then you can discern the doubling and tripling of each subject's facial features to create a cohesive whole. The collage's pieces generate subtle facial shifts to reflect differing sentiments depending on the viewing angle. It’s brilliant. The careful cutting and re-connecting of each subject's face almost duplicates the cutting of Black bodies through scientific experiments.

Each image also contains a covert botanical bloom interspersed throughout, perhaps evoking the famous florals of Georgia O’Keefe (though she insisted her flower paintings did not intentionally evoke sexual anatomy). Mshinda more subtly interpolates floral images without extra explanation—an understated way to incorporate the reproductive theme without overpowering the subjects.

I just loved these images of Black figures that were expressively grounded yet uplifting. The pieces don’t fetishize them, but portray their distinctive facial features, their differing hair textures, and their emotional experience through numerous front and side profiles.

Emotional ripples

Each portrait showcases the subject while signaling Mshinda's skill. The "Denise" collage essay includes a 3D reproductive rendering placed atop a simple black background almost reminiscent of 1970s black velvet painting. Jah Beverly's sepia-toned portrait includes a complementary inverse image with a handwritten quote ("I am a lover without a lover") and pieces of poppy-colored petals interwoven throughout. Brianna Bell's botanical portrait includes climbing plants, green leaves, and rose buds placed atop an olive-green setting. There is a doubling effect of her face and hair, partially in monochrome and then negative. Sandra Gilead's portrait includes superimposed cut-outs on a red backdrop. The collages are so smart and successfully portray subtle emotional ripples while maintaining the subjects' features.

Although you don't need the online interviews to enjoy the art, it definitely adds a different level. The Of Black Wombhood site includes links to academic analysis concerning Black reproduction and further cements the themes.

More words needed

I love the exhibition’s art, but I felt that the one-sentence wall descriptions do not clearly identify key terms, like wombhood or womb-journey. The copy introducing each portrait reiterates the term wombhood without explaining what it means to the subject or including any transcript excerpts, perhaps assuming we have already read or heard it.

The opening description to the gallery also uses terms like womb-journey without explanation, and it details the social club that inspired the show. But it lacks the lucid historical timeline from Mshinda’s proposal, which contextualizes and explains the entire exhibition.

In one area of the show, I understand that the West African wall masks recreate the living room of one of the subjects, but we don’t get an explanation of how that relates to the Black American’s reproductive difficulties. Yes, we’re all in the Diaspora, but I would have preferred more verbiage clearly linking the masks to the main subject matter. A portrait of Henrietta Lacks or statistics on Black women’s reproductive concerns in the US healthcare system could have been good additions as well.

Photo albums incorporated into the show could have been a place for this. But they also toss out terms followed by photos without explanation. They call vintage Black Hollywood performers “womb-bearers” without explaining exactly how that represents Josephine Baker, for example. I enjoyed the images of Black Victorian women and Black maternal assistants, but I would have loved an accompanying history of these women and their role in Black culture.

While JL Simonson’s gallery soundtrack recreates a womb-like sound, the extracts I heard primarily detailed dreams. I would’ve preferred a clear sequential loop of each of the interview subjects instead.

Fight the re-erasure of Black bodies

This subject matter is prevalent and significant. Ultimately, Mshinda’s photo collages overcome any flaws in presentation, and we need more projects tangibly identifying the continued disenfranchisement of the Black body in reproductive health. So this show, and no doubt its companion show later at Da Vinci Art Alliance, are worth seeing, especially if you visit the website, read the online references, and listen to the interviews first. Our current Presidential administration is trying to re-erase Black bodies. Please support exhibitions that celebrate them.

At top: Saundra, a collage portrait by Kara Mshinda on view at TILT. (Image courtesy of the artist and TILT.)