June 11 – July 27, 2022
Roll Up Project is pleased to present an installation by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, guest curated by Suzanne L’Heureux of Interface Gallery. This installation heralds Branfman-Verissimo’s return to the Bay Area from Richmond, Virginia, where they recently graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University’s MFA program.
Living Together and on Top of Each Other (2022) reflects on Branfman-Verissimo’s lived experiences in both Oakland and Richmond, Virginia. In the installation, color, pattern, text, and line are layered to highlight overlapping memories and stories from peers and elders in the community. In their own words:
“Sometimes the words are easy to read, other times they are illegible, the alphabet as we know it gets turned into patterns and imagery and doesn’t read in one way. Sometimes the words are hard to read, you have to move on, other times they ask you to pause and read again.”
Abstracting the alphabet encourages the viewer to ruminate over the text, to consider each word carefully, and to halt the instinctive tendency to read, comprehend, and breezily move on. Branfman-Verissimo also notes that due to the painted glass, the view from inside the window is different from the outside. Using all available surfaces, the installation acts as a painting in three dimensions, providing and interstitial space between the window and the back wall where a viewer could envision themselves.
Branfman-Verissimo’s experiences intertwine and overlap with the lives and stories of Black and brown, queer, trans- and gender non-conforming people rooted in Oakland and Richmond. Branfman-Verissimo notes that despite being thousands of miles apart, their experiences are similar and resonant. Branfman-Verissimo’s work amplifies their voices in an effort to bring visibility, resiliency, and a measure of protection to B.I.Q.T.P.O.C. community members in our community, and in those around the state, country, and globe.
A poem by the artist accompanies this installation (see below). Printed copies are also available at the Harrison Street window.
About the Artist
Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo (they/them/Lukaza) is an artist, activist, educator, storyteller & curator who lives/works between Lisjan Ohlone Land [Oakland, CA] and Powhatan Land [Richmond, VA]. They got their MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and BFA from California College of the Arts. Branfman-Verissimo’s work has been included in exhibitions and performances at Konsthall C [Stockholm, Sweden], SEPTEMBER Gallery [Kinderhook, NY], EFA Project Space [New York City, NY], Leslie Lohman Museum [New York City, NY], Yerba Buena Center for the Arts [San Francisco, CA] and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive [Berkeley, CA], amongst others. From 2015-2020, Lukaza ran a gallery in their Temescal Apartment kitchen, called Nook Gallery, centering and making space for the work of B.I.Q.T.P.O.C. artists, activists, writers, performers, thinkers and community members. Their artist books and prints have been published by Endless Editions, Childish Books, Play Press, Press Press, Sming Sming, Night Diver Press and Printed Matter Inc. They are a founding member of Moments Co-op and Community Space in Downtown Oakland, CA and are honored to be showing work in the windows of Roll Up Project.
Learn more about their work at lukazabranfmanverissimo.com.
Learn more about Suzanne L’Heureux and Interface Gallery at http://www.interfaceartgallery.com/info and https://www.divingdeepcoaching.com/aboutme
ON VIEW IN THE HARRISON ST. WINDOW
Living Together and on Top of Each Other, 2022 (detail)
mixed media
84 x 141 x 39 inches
photo courtesy of artist
The layering
On top of
Below
Side by side
of my lived experience and the stories of deeply rooted Black and brown, queer, trans, gender non-conforming people in Richmond, VA
Living together and on top of eachother
of my lived experience and the stories of deeply rooted Black and brown, queer, trans, gender non-conforming people in Oakland, CA
This is how I learn of my place and our relationship to it
This is how we make community, by speaking the same tongues
across states and counties and city lines and blocks and countries
Our language is told through care acts and slow looking, through asking why is it so hard to find any Black queer history in this city?
Living together and on top of eachother
multi layered collages, paintings, prints, posters
on plastic/glass, a screen print transparency, a view from the inside that is different from the outside, windows
Sometimes the words are easy to read, other times they are illegible, the alphabet as we know it gets turned into patterns and imagery and doesn’t read in one way. Sometimes the words are hard to read, you have to move on, other times they ask you to pause and read again.
Living together and on top of eachother
on Ro’s porch, in the streets of downtown Richmond, surrounded by queers bathing on river rocks, having nourishing check-ins, walking on the paths and trails of our forced migration, eating fresh papayas with lime, getting browner in hot southern sun, turning storefronts into the community centers of our dreams, learning from our elders, making kin in new spaces
helping me come to terms with the fact that our (and by our I mean B.I.Q.T.P.O.C.) stories will always be in relation to the lived experiences and places we orbit. I cannot understand that interweaving without interweaving my stories with stories of the people around me who speak my lived reality. It’s a new place and the same place.
These experiences are felt by many, all over this state, country, globe and this work amplifies these stories.
This amplification brings me closer to this landscape while also holding my deep roots in cities far far away. This amplification makes me, us, we feel seen, safe, resilient, protected. They become one here. They become one. Amplification becomes my viewfinder.
ON VIEW IN THE THIRD ST. WINDOWS
