The Sound Cleanse Altars

2026 | Brooklyn, NY

Ongoing / Future Installation (debuting at The Bishop Gallery, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with future presentations in various spaces)

The Sound Cleanse Altars is an Afrofuturist sound installation that explores ancestral intelligence through the lens of everyday objects charged with intention, magic, and technology. Drawing from protective traditions in Gullah Geechee and Angolan communities where cobalt blue bottles have long served as spiritual tools to trap and transmute negative energies, the work reimagines these humble vessels as portals to diasporic futures.

A series of blue bottle sculptures function as contemporary ritual objects and intimate listening stations. Visitors are invited to engage one-on-one by picking up headphones, encountering original sound compositions that layer protection prayers, vibrational textures, and sonic elements rooted in African diasporic traditions. In this way, sound becomes a living technology activating cultural memory, offering cleansing, and weaving personal reflection with collective care.

By transforming inherited symbols into active, vibrational altars, the installation asserts ownership over narrative and meaning. It positions ancestral knowledge not as static tradition but as adaptive, intelligent systems that speak directly to the present and future. The Sound Cleanse Altars invites us to listen deeply to the intelligence held in ordinary objects, reminding us that protection, storytelling, and healing have always been advanced technologies of survival and imagination.