https://dericashields.com dericashields.com Tue, 10 Nov 2026 17:27:58 +0000 https://dericashields.com en https://dericashields.com/Untitled-toward-a-text-on-Donald-Rodney Tue, 10 Nov 2026 17:27:58 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/Untitled-toward-a-text-on-Donald-Rodney The idea that Rodney used “sickle cell as a metaphor for social ills” can be found in wall texts, press releases and social media posts. While Rodney did use metaphor, this one is particularly strained as a means of engaging sixteen years of prolific art making that forcefully communicates the entanglement of racial capitalism, antiblackness, ableism and biomedical knowledge formation. Artist Carolyn Lazard has pointed to the problem with considering these elements of his practice as separable: “Would we look at some other artist who is multiply marginalized and say, for instance, ‘Oh, that person was engaging their gender as a metaphor for their queerness’?” To open up other ways of thinking about Rodney’s work, I want to offer metonymy and pun, alongside metaphor. While the success of a metaphor depends on a collective agreement that two entities are fundamentally distinct, metonymy and punning rely on the group’s belief in the distinction and continuity between the parts. So, when Rodney uses the crown as a metonym for monarchy, the social and symbolic relatedness of these entities is what gives the device meaning. Similarly, puns don’t work without continuity and difference, as in A Nigger Splash, diverging meanings are held together by a shared word, syntax, sound or sign.— Extract from Untitled [toward a text on Donald Rodney] published in the 59th Carnegie International catalogue, 2026 <img width="4032" height="3024" width_o="4032" height_o="3024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/25f020be900b41ecc7fc24a114e77def88d62ec2a834e5d5ec1892cdb5da17c8/donald-rodney-brit-nora.jpg" data-mid="254207223" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/25f020be900b41ecc7fc24a114e77def88d62ec2a834e5d5ec1892cdb5da17c8/donald-rodney-brit-nora.jpg" />My friend Nora holding up a photo of Donald Rodney’s painting Britannia Hospital 3, outside Autograph, after my failed attempt to purchase this book on the penultimate day of my research trip. London, 2025.<img width="2930" height="1831" width_o="2930" height_o="1831" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fca5ff4c583c6edc15693e50eb74f8a10469b94007f01e4ab9c94469355c8450/donald-rodney-research-2.jpg" data-mid="254208311" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fca5ff4c583c6edc15693e50eb74f8a10469b94007f01e4ab9c94469355c8450/donald-rodney-research-2.jpg" /> An in-progress photograph of the assembling of Britannia Hospital 2. Moved by the folded over copes of The&nbsp;Sun newspaper that Rodney was working from and by the parquet flooring, the church hall of it all. Archival research, London, 2025. In Richard Hylton’s book I read that Rodney based the figure in Britannia Hospital 2 on a syndicated photograph. About a decade ago, I lifted several books from my mum’s 80s/90s book collection into my own. On the offchance/following a hunch/feeling led, I pulled out her copy of&nbsp;Women Under Apartheid. This is the photograph. <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/328e67345610db976f9c97829e676392e1baa2706eb9d5c8c29f471861a7ac04/donald-rodney-research1.jpg" data-mid="254207599" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/328e67345610db976f9c97829e676392e1baa2706eb9d5c8c29f471861a7ac04/donald-rodney-research1.jpg" /> 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&nbsp;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 —&nbsp;S*an D. Henry-Smith Helen Mills — Derica Shields Psychic’s Assistant + stage directions —&nbsp;senakirfa a. Marguerite’s Auric Field —&nbsp;Raoni/Muzho Saleh Commissioned by Alec Mateo &amp; Lorenzo García-Andrade, Voice as Landscape 2025 Photo credit Geo Wyex 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. 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. 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. 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.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; — 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 https://dericashields.com/The-Future-Weird Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:14:22 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/The-Future-Weird The Future Weird In 2013, I co-founded a screening and discussion series dedicated to speculative, sci-fi and world-unravelling film by Black, African and ‘Global South’ filmmakers. Each episode was organised thematically, and drew on a range of materials — including adverts, music videos, news clips and colonial archives — to frame shorts and features that laid waste to the present, imagined the future and disturbed the clichés of mainstream science fiction.&nbsp; Editions Visions of Excess, 2013,&nbsp;Spectacle Theater, NY Black Atlantis, 2013,&nbsp;Spectacle Theater, NY Remote Control, 2013,&nbsp;Spectacle Theater, NY Non-Resident Aliens, 2014,&nbsp;Spectacle Theater, NY Remote Control (w/ Zina Saro Wiwa), 2014,&nbsp;Museum of Art and Design, NY In Search of a Black Atlantis, 2014,&nbsp;Afrofuturist Affair, Philadelphia Les Saignantes dir. Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2014, Museum of Morbid Anatomy x The New Inquiry, NY Video Farm, 2014,&nbsp;Trans-Farm/Apexart, Detroit&nbsp; Selected Press The Future Weird: An Interview With Derica Shields by Fanta Sylla, Black Girls Talking Trailer for ‘Visions of Excess’ at Spectacle Theater by Steve MacFarlane 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&nbsp;Essay: Cutting Checks: Holly Graham’s 20/20 commission, 2025 Text: Alternative Interest(s): Jay Tan at Tale of a Tub, 2024&nbsp; 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:&nbsp;UK Government is Policing the Right to Dissent, Frieze, 2021&nbsp; Feature: No Escape Empire: Cameron Rowland at London’s ICA, Frieze, 2020 Review: Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus at Tate Modern, Frieze,&nbsp;2019 Review: Libita Clayton’s Quantum Ghost at Gasworks, Frieze,&nbsp;2019 Review: E. Jane’s Lavendra at American Medium, Flash Art,&nbsp;2017 Interview: Barry Jenkins, Rookie, 2016 Interview: Santigold, Rookie, 2016 Essay: Bodied, Girls Like Us, 2015&nbsp; Interview: Kelela, Rookie, 2015 Essay: Face Me, I Face You, The New Inquiry, 2014Interview: Larry Achiampong, Live Art Almanac Volume 4, 2013 https://dericashields.com/currently-ing Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:09:56 +0000 dericashields.com https://dericashields.com/currently-ing currently -ing 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&nbsp;Neighbouring Sounds (O Som ao Redor), 2012,&nbsp;Kleber Mendonça Filho [cane memory, corregidora, recife, grills, bolts, velázquez-bacon, rooftop bounce] 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.”