Homecoming / Homegoing: Weaving Expressions of Community, and Healing at the Phillips@THEARC
review of art exhibition
Before visiting Zsudayka Nzinga’s Homecoming / Homegoing exhibition at Phillips@THEARC, I regarded fabrics merely as a collage component. The six artworks on display by Nzinga showcase the expressive power of textiles, where fabrics serve as frames, depict figures and vegetation, create landscape backdrops, and convey concepts of meaning like grief.
I was struck by how the fabrics extended beyond the traditional framing, reflecting Nzinga’s intention to mirror the ongoing effects of past events in America’s history. In several artworks, Nzinga focuses on outdoor scenes, a departure from her past themes centered on family and interior spaces. This exhibition broadens Nzinga’s body of work and engages viewers in conversations about America’s founding history and its complex intersections with the Black experience.
In Run Away But Come Back Petit Marronage Act 1, the artwork depicts two Black men at a plantation. Behind them is a cabin with a red, blue, and white striped roof set against a starry navy sky fabric. With a comforting arm around the first, the man on the left looks calmly out to the plantation. The man on the right looks towards the horizon with a sad expression. To the right, five men are cast in varying silhouettes of the American Flag. A fabric of red and yellow flowers frames the entire scene. The artwork Run Away But Come Back Petit Marronage Act 2 portrays a similar scene with women as the central figures.
These artworks explore Petite Marronage, a form of resistance where enslaved people briefly left plantations before returning. These escapes were crucial acts of self-care, allowing them to assert their autonomy despite harsh conditions. Many returned because of family ties and the sense of home. The sentiment is poignantly expressed through the fabrics of red and yellow flowers that cover the slave cabins. Nzinga frames the scene with motifs of stripes and stars, juxtaposing America’s ideals with its practice of slavery. The artworks serve as visual narratives, echoing Nzinga’s desire to “use her collage paintings as counter-narratives that address gaps in America and art history.” An oral history inspired the Petit Marronage series passed down in Nzinga’s family.
In The Domestics, Nzinga continues her interrogation of America’s history through a group portrait of adults and children in front of a building made with striped fabrics. Figures are rendered in fleshy tones of acrylic, while others appear as black-and-white scribbles, or silhouettes. Though the portrait seems innocent, its meaning is far from benign. Nzinga based this collage on a historical photograph of slaveholders and enslaved workers serving as symbols of wealth.
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This article was written with support from the DC Arts Writing Fellowship, a project of the non-profit Day Eight.
