The Black Portal Project is an ongoing project between Michael Javon Demps and Wesley Taylor. In the summer of 2018 it was also a traveling residency that explored multiple sites important to Black media production. The residency spanned six weeks and four countries, two continents. The project was conceived and executed by members of All Faux Everythings and Black Chalk (Nontsikelelo Mutiti and Tinashe Mushakavanhu). The trip was organized and curated by Designer Nontsi Mutiti. The sites visited included: Detroit, Harare, Richmond (VA), Johannesburg, New Haven, and Addis Ababa.

The Black Portals Project investigates personal histories, black histories, blackness, fragmented identity, archives/archiving, ephemera/ephemeral, speculative pasts and futures, contemporary art practices, and the connective pathways between all of these things. It is a celebration of those who have contemplated, theorized, and generated these powerful pathways through their contributions to the visual arts, music, activism, and writing, throughout history and the diaspora. In a way, the project is also a continuation and response to James Baldwin’s essay Princes and Powers, recounting his attendance at The Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists in Paris in 1956, which recalls his internal struggle with negotiating identities of blackness as they span across the globe. 

To connect the past with the present, Reading Zimbabwe prepared a reading list of essential texts to help contextualize history, politics, and current cultural production related to the sites visited during the residency. The collective readings helped all participants understand this work in a broader, global context.

During the residency, the All Faux and Black Chalk organized a series of events and happenings that included dinners, vinyl exchanges, instrument/hardware exchanges, improvisational electronic music making, DJing, and garment manufacturing. During the events, We collaborated with music collectives from South Africa and Zimbabwe and were hosted in their homes and studios. Collaborators include notable musicians and sound artists: Shingai Shoniwa, Tshepang Ramoba, Robert Marchiri, and The Monkey Nuts.

The immediate and improvisational nature of the trip made most of the artifacts produced challenging to capture. The trip was mostly documented through cell phone photos and videos. To process the trip, All Faux Everythings continues to experiment with music/sound, images, animations, and publications from content generated during the journey. Many of the experiments and works in progress are still disseminated publicly through social media, mini-exhibitions, and performances.

All Faux Everythings