Vagner Mendonça Whitehead

In December of 2020 I started a private performance activity, with a knitting loom and audio books, which I eventually called Left Listening. I wanted to visualize the my learning of anti-racism literature, as well as document loss during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As an object, Left Listening was exhibited once in October 2021. Two live performance iterations were presented in June 2022, with future formats and venues being considered for the future. Knitting workshops and discussions are also being planned for 2022 and 2023.

The following books have been knitted thus far:

The Purpose of Power by Alicia Garza

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davies

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Race Matters by Cornel West

Unapologetic by Charlene Carruthers

The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison

Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain

All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep by Andre Henry

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Johns (in project June 2022)

Five-channel video installation, with new channels added every ten or so years

Ongoing project (2019-2021)

New series (2020-21) of video stills titled after songs lip-synched, presented as printed photographs.