Oto-Abasi Attah: Don’t Forget to Touch Grass
8629 Crenshaw Blvd
Inglewood, CA 90305
Opening Saturday, September 9, 2023: RSVP HERE
The expression, "Don't Forget To Touch Grass", has often been used in pop culture as a reminder to disconnect from technology: to go outside and to imagine activities on a terrain outside of the digital. Oto-Abasi Attah’s practice and eponymous installation, Don’t Forget to Touch Grass, emerges from this space. In a world where people’s lives are mapped out because of what is seen on television and social media, incessantly suggesting to us what we should and should not do, Attah’s practice persists a realization that our differences are what bring us together, and what makes the world a beautiful place is precisely that. "Touching grass" is, hence, a call to action as well as a mantra. A meditation in mindfulness practice. Enjoying where one’s feet land - and making the most of one’s time while they explore their surroundings and discover themselves. Just like flowers, Attah demonstrates, we all want to exist and be as we were created. Attah has imagined a space where people can be the flowers that we are: beautiful entities that are all different, but work together in harmony with the will of existence.
Dairy Mart Fellowship for Abolition and the Advancement of the Creative Economy (CDM-FAACE) Presents Inglewood & Prototyping the Abolitionist Imagination
The Three-Part, Culminating Exhibition will Feature Solo Exhibitions by CDM-FAACE Inaugural Fellows Autumn Breon, Oto-Abasi Attah, and juice wood
Los Angeles, CA [August 11, 2023] — Crenshaw Dairy Mart is pleased to announce the culminating exhibitions for the inaugural cohort of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart Fellowship for Abolition and the Advancement of the Creative Economy (CDM-FAACE). Organized around the theme, Inglewood & Prototyping the Abolitionist Imagination, and featuring three solo exhibitions by 2022-2023 CDM-FAACE Fellows Autumn Breon, Oto-Abasi Attah, and juice wood, this cogent presentation envisions the future of Inglewood through an abolitionist framework. The first exhibition, Autumn Breon: Essentials, will open on Saturday, August 26, 2023, and remain on view through September 1, 2023.
CDM-FAACE is a one-year fellowship program that incorporates the philosophies and ethos of traditional artist residency programs through a distinct abolitionist framework, alongside a robust curriculum with frequent lectures, workshops, and seminars. CDM-FAACE fellows have been introduced to models of collective-care and collective-critique through regular studio visits and group critiques for the duration of this year-long fellowship. Each fellow was provided with access to healthcare insurance for the entirety of their fellowship. They also received a stipend of $100,000 to utilize for living expenses, studio expenses, art supplies, and materials expenses.
“Crenshaw Dairy Mart’s selection of Autumn Breon, Oto-Abasi Attah, and juice wood for the inaugural CDM-FAACE cohort honors the collective’s grassroots legacy and the programmatic contributions of all three fellows since its founding, while representing key tenets of the abolitionist framework espoused by CDM’s co-founders. The culminating exhibitions of all three artists work together to prototype a rubric of care within this framework, providing space for healing, access to economies of care, and a way to memorialize the community and honor the past.” - Crenshaw Dairy Mart
Engaged around the theme, “Inglewood and Prototyping the Abolitionist Imagination,” each exhibition will present the fellows’ independent research and fieldwork, largely centered around navigating Black community autonomy, community healing, and economies of care. The inaugural 2022–2023 CDM-FAACE fellows, each of whom are Inglewood-born and raised, prototype the abolitionist imagination in their own communities, recognizing the history and people of Inglewood through their respective practices and discourse.
The first of three culminating exhibitions, Autumn Breon: Essentials will feature sculpture and video works that invite the audience to interact with relics from “Esoterica”, described by Breon as an extraterrestrial location and the next destination for ancestors when they leave Earth. An interactive piece in the form of a vending machine encourages the viewer to use familiar cues as opportunities to engage with the concept of care.
Video diptychs of Black women adorning themselves incorporate both original and archival imagery. Borrowing from the design of double-paneled altarpieces, these diptychs magnify intimate moments of care into images that are larger than life. The videos frame a singular vending machine supplied with objects that Black women requested in response to the question: “What items represent and provide care?” The pink vending machine is fully stocked with condoms, tampons, pads, edge control, braiding hair, abortion pill resources, and science fiction novels written by Black women. All contents are free of charge.
Autumn Breon’s work serves as an intervention to the current culture, as does the character she embodies through her practice – an intermediary entity from Esoterica who educates and thereby liberates the Earth-bound with information about the proximal, atemporal universe she inhabits. The artist’s process of worldbuilding is a radical, decolonial act of imagination that is deeply aligned with CDM’s guiding pedagogy of Abolitionist Aesthetics.
Presented across CDM's galleries, the groundbreaking exhibition amplifies the work of three foundational artists to CDM and underscores the pivotal roles each played in shaping CDM's inception. Autumn Breon, celebrated for co-curating the space’s inaugural exhibition Yes on R! Archives and Legal Conceptions in 2020, embodies the essence of community-oriented care; Oto-Abasi Attah, the visionary behind the captivating mural paying tribute to Nipsey Hussle, will transform one of the CDM galleries into a grassy space that will be used for communal gathering, collective rejuvenation, and creativity; juice wood established the first Inglewood Community Fridge at CDM and for this exhibition, will provide meticulous documentation of local narratives, effectively preserving and honoring the Inglewood community. Representing a holistic convergence of creativity and care around the central theme, Inglewood & Prototyping the Abolitionist Imagination also sets forth a replicable prototype for fostering care through an abolitionist framework while inviting visitors to engage with the essential fabric of their communities.