Commissioned by the Studio Museum in Harlem, Untitled (heliotrope), is a sculptural and sound installation comprised of brass tubes of varying lengths and diameters and hand-woven brass wires; the resulting shape recalls both a pipe organ and a hand-made raft. Prominently accompanying the movement along the stairway towards the mezzanine, a continuous, generative composition resonates through the metal with pre-recorded voices whose tones match the pipes' resonant frequencies, producing overtones that, in return, gently “sing” in accompaniment with the voices. 

The dynamic chorus of voices vocalize assorted tonal utterances based on a euphoric “Ah!” and a disheartened “Oh”—expressed in accordance with each pipe’s unique harmonic frequencies. The minimal lyrics are augmented and shaped by the nuance of the vocalists’ expressions through the ebbs and swells of the composition, creating a suspended, sometimes contradictory set of emotions that voice the complexities of longing and the quest for fulfillment.

Untitled (heliotrope) was inspired in part by the Studio Museum in Harlem’s 6^th floor mezzanine window that gazes towards the South, and the past and present histories of migration it conjures, as well as by the journeys of existential quest. The sculpture’s unraveled brass threads reach towards the windows – toward the sun, towards the South, as if reaching for nourishment, as if reaching through time and space for other places and states of existence. 

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  Commission for the Studio Museum in Harlem