Jacolby Satterwhite (American, b.1986)
We Are in Hell When We Hurt Each Other, 2020
HD virtual reality video with sound
RT: 18:07
Jacolby Satterwhite’s We Are in Hell When We Hurt Each Other, now on display in the Van Every Gallery, is a part of his Birds in Paradise suite. Like much of Satterwhite’s works from the last decade, We Are in Hell When We Hurt Each Other may be considered a posthumous collaboration with his mother, Patricia, who used creative practices such as drawing and singing to cope with her schizophrenia. Patricia aspired to be both a pop star and an inventor. As such, many of the musical recordings and drawings she left behind are woven into Satterwhite’s work. Her voice is an integral component in Birds as Paradise, as well as in a double LP album “Love Will Find a Way Home” that Satterwhite created with Nick Weiss under the band name PAT. Though Patricia sent drawings of her proposed consumer goods to shopping networks and patent offices, none were ever realized during her lifetime. Instead, they take form in her son’s animations, and at times, in the physical world as neon installations, 3-D prints, and more.
Experienced as virtual reality, We Are in Hell When We Hurt Each Other, immerses the viewer in an imagined, utopian space that celebrates Black women and their insistence on survival. Black femme bodies in motion are foregrounded and centralized, but not eroticized. For Satterwhite, the contortions represent flexibility and resistance in the battle against societal norms around race, gender, and sexuality.
Come to the Van Every Gallery to experience this amazing piece of work and see the rest of the exhibit!