Freedom is a Constant Prayer

Prior to abolition, Staten Island was an enclave for enslaved Africans fleeing bondage and their abolitionist allies. It has also been the site of racial violence from the 1863 draft riots to police murder of Eric Garner. This island knows both the hope of liberation and the heartbreak of suffering.

Being with this history, we called on ancestral technologies for transmuting the grief of racial violence.

We asked, what might a ritual look like that offers meditation, dance and song as a portal of transformation?

This land exists in our living, in our loving, in our yearning for freedom.

Photography by Tabitha Turchio

Guided Meditation and Performance Ritual inspired by the histories of abolition and Black and Indigenous resilience on Staten Island

Musical Accompaniment by

Najee Wilson

Historical Archives and Context provided by historian Debbie-Ann Paige and The Staten Island Museum

When we live, gather, imagine in this land, our bodies and our psyches respond to the energy and history of the land. Through this ritual, we honored our personal and collective healing as one and the same with the ecology….