Petra Floyd '12

Petra Floyd '12 recently exhibited an installation piece at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. The multimedia and multidisciplinary exhibit intends to represent the diversity of artistic visions for a black queer future.

Floyd collaborated with fellow artist JD Stokely of Hampshire College to create a multilayered multimedia installation exploring intersecting themes of "home, haunting memory, family, authenticity, immigrant and first-generation identity."

Their installation—867 Sharon Ln.—incorporates elements of sound, video, sculpture and viewer participation. In addition, Floyd and Stokely are collaborating on a play that prominently features the installation and explores similar themes.

"867 Sharon Ln., is the imagined house of the main characters in our play," says Floyd. "It's a space where a family separated by geographical, generational, and metaphysical distance is reunited." The pair used found materials to craft a sense of home by creating familiar household items including a bed, television, couch, chandelier and dining room table.

Floyd intends to create art that "encourages viewers to be active." In this multimedia piece "haunting can be represented by faint, eerie sounds, a video from the perspective of a ghost, flickering lights, a worn armchair, or dusty photos of dead relatives," says Floyd. "By bringing together these disparate elements, Stokely and I are creating a dense, immersive setting which prompts viewers to lose themselves in reflection and ultimately respond."

Floyd, an art major from Philadelphia, is a member of the Roots and River Productions, a community of emerging queer artists of color in Brooklyn, New York that supports interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work. Multiverse: A Black Od(d)ssey is part of a Black History program created by the Brooklyn Community Pride Center and Roots and River Productions.

The following video is shot from the perspective of B., one of the characters, who may or may not be a ghost. In the installation this video is shown on a television in the house.

B.vision from Petra Floyd on Vimeo.