Past Performing Arts

jaamil olawale kosoko

the hold

Stream | Artist Residency | Award Winning Project | Ohio Premiere

Info & Tickets

Nile Harris (left) and jaamil olawale kosoko (right) embracing one another. Harris’s face and body are covered with shimmery brown fabric. kosoko—who has dark brown skin and silver, gold, and brown gems on their bare shoulder, neck, and chest—is leaning their bare head on Harris’s chest.

Jun 17, 2022–Aug 14, 2022

Online

The live performance took place June 17, 2022. A video of the performance streamed on this page June 17 and August 1–14, 2022.

ACCESSIBILITY

A recording of the performance with ASL interpretation, closed captions, and a transcript was available August 1–14.

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility or require an accommodation such as a descriptive transcript to participate in this event, please contact Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall at accessibility@wexarts.org or via telephone at (614) 688-3890.

Become a Member

Wexner Center Artist Residency Award–recipient jaamil olawale kosoko activates their works on view in our galleries with the hold—a performance streamed to audiences in our Performance Space and on this page.

Meshing fabric, lighting, time, and sound art as sculptural material within Syllabus for Black Love, their multichannel video installation on view in our galleries this summer, the hold is an embrace, a place, a time between time. This performance—featuring an alternating ensemble of virtual doulas including Everett-Asis Saunders and Nile Harris—is a slippery, emerging, chameleonic practice rupturing the borders of reality, theatricality, and the digital realm. Jumping through and bending the time-space continuum, the hold behaves as both arrival and exit—a birth passage into the nuance of Black lives attempting the critical and alchemical work of self-examination, discovery, and becoming. Stay after the performance for a Q&A with the artists moderated by Director of Performing Arts Lane Czaplinski and Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions Kelly Kivland.

This performance is part of Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage, an interdisciplinary exhibition curated by kosoko that amplifies Black feminist voices in contemporary art and performance. Click here to view the complete lineup.

IMAGE CAPTION
From left to right: Nile Harris and jaamil olawale kosoko, photo: Freddy Koh.

"The hold repeats and repeats and repeats in and into the present."

Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

Related Material

kosoko_the_hold_transcript.pdf 0.20 MB

More about the artist

jaamil olawale kosoko (b. Detroit, MI) is a multispirited Nigerian American author, performance artist, and curator of Yoruba and Natchez descent, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more on the artist’s website and follow the artist on Instagram.

Tag(s)

Performing Arts

Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by jaamil olawale kosoko in collaboration with all of its programming departments.

THIS PERFORMANCE MADE POSSIBLE BY
New England Foundation for the Arts

PORTAL FOR(E) THE EPHEMERAL PASSAGE MADE POSSIBLE BY
National Endowment for the Arts

EXHIBITIONS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Bill and Sheila Lambert
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Carol and David Aronowitz
Crane Family Foundation
Mike and Paige Crane

FREE GALLERIES MADE POSSIBLE BY
American Electric Power Foundation
Adam Flatto
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
Bill and Sheila Lambert

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR FREE GALLERIES PROVIDED BY
CoverMyMeds
PNC Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
The Wexner Family
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Columbus Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Ohio Arts Council
American Electric Power Foundation
L Brands Foundation
Adam Flatto
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
Bill and Sheila Lambert
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Nationwide Foundation
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Mike and Paige Crane
Pete Scantland
Axium Packaging
CampusParc
CoverMyMeds
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
President Kristina M. Johnson and Mrs. Veronica Meinhard
Nancy Kramer
Huntington
Lisa Barton
Johanna DeStefano
Russell and Joyce Gertmenian
Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel
Ron and Ann Pizzuti
Joyce and Chuck Shenk
Bruce and Joy Soll
Jones Day