- [Tau] Keep working on that for a little bit
and then I'm gonna start on my thing.
Okay.
It's really easy to lose yourself
within the making part of things.
(eccentric effects playing)
- [Camera Assistant] One A take one mark.
- [Assistant] See if it's right and then I can tweak it.
- [Tau] Yeah.
I have a very deep kind of interior private life.
I've been that way since I was a child.
♪ Are you okay? ♪
(ambient music)
♪ Sit down ♪
- [Tau] Had a hard time speaking, intentionally quiet.
And I also really struggled with communicating
and getting my ideas out.
(ambient woodwind music)
Sculpture has been really important to that interior self.
- [Assistant] I love it. It looks really good.
Oh yeah. You did a good job on that.
We're trying to do invisible around--
- [Tau] It's seamless. Yeah, it's beautiful.
- [Assistant] Yeah.
Sorry, I'm trying to pin this down.
- [Tau] I'm making my own interpretations
of some of the things that I absorb.
The exciting thing about fabric,
when it's not brand new it has character, it's mysterious.
I love the imperfection
and I love wondering about their secret lives.
We use every single piece of scrap.
The floor gets swept at the end of the day
but then we collect the little pieces.
When we accumulate enough of them,
make new fabrics out of them.
So each new sculpture has a piece
of an older one embedded in it.
They share shreds of the same memory and the same truth.
(eccentric percussion music)
I'm specifically interested in the masks as objects
which are used directly in the process of communicating
with a spirit or a God or sometimes an ancestor.
I began looking at Yoruba masks,
ceremonial ritual masks
and thinking about their functions.
The wearer of the mask comes with a message.
They're able to deliver the message
when the mask is possessing them.
(scissors cutting)
(machine sewing)
(scissors cutting) (electric piano music)
A lot of Black creation is an upcycling
regardless of a lack thereof, regardless of an access to.
I would position myself in the DIY kind of nature,
taking things as they are and letting them shine.
(electric piano music) (faint voice messages playing)
There's a sense of calm when I'm here alone
with the objects as well,
the way that they kind of preside over the studio.
I feel held by them.
(ambient electric piano music)
During the process of making the artworks,
there's sort of a yearning feeling that comes off of them.
I don't know.
I would say it's like a need for recognition.
When you spend so much time fixated on touching
and handling, sometimes swaddled in the material even,
you're kind of bonded to it in a way.
And everything I make is part of this process of
showing them I've heard you
and these are the symbols that I've made in response to you,
and you're being seen.
The stories are not really new.
They're being interpreted differently.
The materials are not new.
They're now contributing themselves
in a different form and
this is really wonderful.
(ambient electric piano music)