Heavenly Brown Body

“Heavenly Brown Body,” is a four-channel video installation, which uses the poem “Litanies to my Heavenly Brown Body” by poet Mark Aguhar (she/her) as the text for a queer liturgy. It rests in the tension between the need of oppressed peoples to name their pain and the incredible ability to celebrate their existence and dream of far better futures. The poem, which subverts—or perhaps reveals the underlying subversion of biblical texts—builds the framework of a piece that features all trans and non-binary performers of color. 

In crafting the piece, I worked with academic and artist Jessi Knippel (she/her) and cinematographer Avery Holliday (they/them) in crafting how I employed religious iconography and the tropes found in fashion and perfume commercials in the hopes of not only making visible but celebrating the people and bodies that heteronormative culture fears, marginalizes, and hides from view. 

The installation opened on December 7th, 2019 at the Torrance Art Museum as a part of the “FORUM II: Adjacent, Adjacent” exhibition.

To view film, please email leslief.muse@gmail.com for a private link.

Winter 2019 INSTALLATION - Adjacent, Adjacent - Torrance Art Museum | Torrance, CA

Exhibition Documentation

Exhibition Trailer

Concept 3D scale model of the “Heavenly Brown Body” installation.