mayfield brooks

Through Viewing Hours I aim to challenge perceptions of death and decay—specifically the spectacle of black bodies dying, decaying, and grieving in plain sight—in order to transform people’s thinking around what becomes possible, inevitable, and necessary when systems break down. Viewing Hours challenges the currency and flippancy that makes black death and black grief profitable. We are now faced with the dissolution of sociopolitical systems touting blatant white supremacy and ecological systems altered by climate change, while human physiological systems become more vulnerable. Humans are facing unspeakable violence and greed. Shit is breaking down. As a black queer artist hustling to make ends meet, breaking down is the norm, so burying my body under compost functions as a trickster tactic of my ongoing life/art practice, Improvising While Black /IWB which is a practice of telling stories that cannot be told through movement and vocal improvisation. Viewing Hours challenges people to witness with great attention. Viewing Hours asks, Can I get a Witness or Does the world need to be destroyed first?