The Body Remembers

Release date: August 3, 2023

The Body Remembers traverses nostalgia — remembering and reimagining Blackness through portraiture, performance, and prose. It serves as a visual testament to ancestral memory, revealing the past, present, and future histories held within Black bodies. Each page functions as a visual map, charting the personal narratives and life experiences that are etched onto Black skin, and breathing life into the Dayton community’s diverse voices, acting as a living and dynamic archive of Black selfhood.

“They say my native tongue

Is the mark of ignorance

Say, I sound like ion know nothin

Like ain’t nobody learned me how to

Spoke”

**The Body Remembers**

*photography editorial • tabloid • folded • 44 pages • 11.3" x 14.9"* *• cover price $5.00*

Title: The Body Remembers

Artists: Angela Burdon & Quentin Sledge

August 3, 2023, Ohio, USA:

Lungs Project is pleased to announce the release of their latest project, The Body Remembers.

About The Project: Drawing from multidisciplinary artist Heather Agyepong’s acclaimed solo performance of the same title, The Body Remembers takes the form of a tabloid newspaper and features the creative output of artists Angela Burdon and Quentin Sledge.

Burdon and Sledge collaborated closely to bring the project to life. They conducted interviews within the Black communities of Dayton, recording personal stories, introspections, and conversations. The publication combines these accounts, transfigured into poetry by Sledge, with visually striking portraits captured by Burdon’s lens, offering an intimate glimpse into Black life from the Dayton community.

The project also incorporates the insights of Resmaa Menakem, the author and psychotherapist known for coining the term “white body supremacy.” Menakem’s work illuminates the intergenerational transmission of race-based biases and fears held within the body, emphasizing the importance of addressing these deeply embedded patterns through bodily healing to confront historical and racialized trauma.

The Body Remembers traverses nostalgia — remembering and reimagining Blackness through portraiture, performance, and prose. It serves as a visual testament to ancestral memory, revealing the past, present, and future histories held within Black bodies. Each page functions as a visual map, charting the personal narratives and life experiences that are etched onto Black skin, and breathing life into the Dayton community’s diverse voices, acting as a living and dynamic archive of Black selfhood.

The publication honors the narratives that shape our collective understanding of Blackness. Accompanied by a series of video interviews, it deftly captures the essence of a community’s extraordinary strength, unwavering resilience, and the impact of storytelling.

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