In My Own Little Corner

From the commissioned exhibtion essay by Ella Ray:

This kind of dreaming, which envisions the quotidian as a vehicle for escape, is at the core of Willie Little’s practice. Little was introduced to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella as a child: he first resonated with Lesley Ann Warren’s 1965 performance in the title role; thirty-two years later, he was particularly affected by Norwood’s and Houston’s performances. Little sees Cinderella and her story as a reflection of his own alienation as a gay Black child raised in “the sticks” during the first years of desegregation. The objects and dreams that filled Little’s childhood bedroom eventually laid the physical and conceptual foundations of a practice that maps Black Southern vernacular aesthetics, as well as experiences of antiblack homophobia and classism. Collaging together aspects of the Black fantastical, formative iconography from popular culture and politics, and deeply biographical structures, Willie Little’s In My Own Little Corner is a multisensory assemblage that draws on his internal and external worlds over the course of his entire life and career.