Four Directions is a four-part project that explores immersive ritual experiences, ceremonial practices and communal rites of passage to consciously channel, engage, and unravel ancestral memory for people of color (BIPOC). It is about healing trans-generational trauma, building intergenerational bridges and engaging in practices of deep rest, self-love, and self-preservation.

Referencing a crossroads—the four directions, four seasons, four stages of human life, etc—Four Directions is made up of four immersive ritual experiences falling into four different categories, that engage different social units within a larger community: Rest—an immersive installation and weekend retreat for Black-identifying women, reframing rest as revolutionary and traversing deep brain wave states to heal on a cellular level; Remembrance—Ghee and her grandfather will construct a very long wooden table with the focus of building and sustaining intergenerational bridges through the griot tradition, comestible storytelling, and traditions of hand-crafting; Reunion—A rite of passage ceremony near the ocean in celebration of people of color; Power—A site-specific performance centered around African American/Black-identifying people taking place at the ocean.

Taught by her grandfather at a very early age, Phylicia Ghee (Baltimore, MD) works in photography, performance, video, fibers, mixed media, installation, and painting. She brings art-based ritual to various communities in the forms of intergenerational storytelling, performance, ceremonial rites of passage, installation, sensory therapy and deep meditative rest experiences.