Who Taught You That? 2026

8ft x 4 ft x 2ft

Paper clay church pew, handmade paper fans, plexiglass, branches, glue, food dye, and wood

Who taught you That?

My work explores the persistence of superstitions and traditions within Southern Black communities, focusing on how Hoodoo practices continue to shape and exist within Southern Black Christianity. Rather than separating these belief systems, I examine how they overlap, showing how rituals, symbols, and ways of knowing are carried through generations and embedded in everyday religious life.

This installation invites viewers to interact with handmade church fans, screen printed with imagery drawn from Hoodoo rituals and Southern superstitions. Displayed on a church pew, these objects reference both spaces of worship and communal gathering, where knowledge is often passed down informally. The fans are constructed from hand processed paper pulp, emphasizing labor, care, and the act of preservation. They are dyed Haint blue, a color traditionally used on Southern porch ceilings to ward off spirits, or haints, linking spiritual protection to both domestic and sacred spaces.

By placing these symbols within a church context, the work highlights how practices often labeled as non Christian have long coexisted with and influenced Christian traditions. The imagery on the fans makes visible what is often unspoken, pointing to the ways these customs have been maintained despite historical attempts to dismiss or erase them.

I created this piece to better understand why I continue to follow these traditions and how they have been passed down to me. I want viewers to reflect on their own inherited beliefs, where they come from, who taught them, and how they persist. Ultimately, the work emphasizes that these traditions are not separate from contemporary life, but are deeply rooted systems of knowledge that continue to shape identity, memory, and belief.