Fugitive Speech
Explore acts of personal testimony in the face of social, cultural, and historical odds
Installation view of Fugitive Speech (2022-11-03/2023-04-30) by JJJJJerome Ellis and Anita FieldsOklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Fugitive Speech was on view in the Mary LeFlore Clements Oklahoma Gallery from November 3, 2022-April 30, 2023.
Exploring personal testimony
Featuring seven artworks by three artists—Emily M. Chase, JJJJJerome Ellis, and Anita Fields—Fugitive Speech considers the relationship between voice, memory, and time through distinct perspectives and approaches to media, including textiles, video, photography, and ceramics.
All That We Wear (2018) by Anita FieldsOklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Wearing identity
Anita Fields's work is a textile installation that delves into Osage tribal identity, cultural memory, and the power of clothing. Detailed images are drawn on each shirt.
Anita Fields uses clay, gold luster glaze, slips, and mixed-media collage to reinterpret Osage ribbonwork in sculptural form. Drawing on themes of resilience and duality, the series reflects on Indigenous identity, memory, and the strength of Native women.
Standing up
Anita Fields's sculpture is stamped and painted with patterns from nature and symbols of Osage cosmology that have been passed down across generations in the artist's family.
Taking the form of a dress, the work suggests how women's bodies carry information by way of kinship and clothing. The presence of illegible script suggests the distortion of written accounts and charges the figure with Indigenous histories of transmitting and losing knowledge.
Impediment is Information (2021) by JJJJJerome EllisOklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Connecting to the past
In this video installation, JJJJJerome Ellis creates “erasure poems” from historical texts about enslaved Black people with speech impediments. Overlaying these with music and ritual footage, he reclaims their stories, linking past and present while honoring a path to freedom.
Installation view of Fugitive Speech (2022-11-03/2023-04-30) by JJJJJerome Ellis and Anita FieldOklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Installation view of Fugitive Speech (2022-11-03/2023-04-30) by Emily M. ChaseOklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
The physicality of remembrance
In Amnesia (Anterograde), Emily M. Chase portrays a dissolving human form, its doubled limbs hinting at physical and cognitive loss over time. Using reversed dyed sheer fabric, Chase explores memory as a deeply bodily experience shaped by mental and physical health.
Exploring memory and loss
Emily M. Chase's work is a poignant exploration of memory and loss. Chase invites viewers to reflect on the fragility of memory and the ways in which we attempt to preserve the intangible aspects of our lives.
Installation view of Fugitive Speech (2022-11-03/2023-04-30) by Anita FieldsOklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Narratives through art
Together, the artworks in Fugitive Speech used images, words, sounds, and symbols to convey stories of intergenerational pain and hope that slip through the gaps of collective history and personal memory.
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