“We’re no longer standing still, defending a position; we’re going forward...” I’m thinking of Lorraine O’Grady’s words as we said farewell to @loopholeofretreatvenice last week. I’m thinking of everything we heard, saw, shared, and felt in the gathering. May we all continue to feel free, full, nourished, energised, embraced, inspired, cared for, loved, joyous, connected, unstoppable. @simoneyvetteleigh @sunrara #tinacampt @saidiya_says , there aren’t adequate thank you words for the colossal gift you dreamt and made possible, but i know there will be rhizomes of new worlds - new language - birthed from it and I’m excited and just so very very grateful 🤎🙏🏾🤎🌊 #loopholeofretreatvenice #likeabridge —————————————————————————- “As part of her exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion, Simone Leigh will bring together scholars, artists, and activists from around the world for a major project, Loophole of Retreat: Venice. Organized by Rashida Bumbray with curatorial advisors Saidiya Hartman, University Professor at Columbia University, and Tina Campt, Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities and Modern Culture and Media, Brown University, the three-day symposium will comprise dialogue, performances, and presentations centered on Black women’s intellectual and creative labor. Loophole of Retreat: Venice builds on an eponymous one-day convening held in 2019 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The conceptual frame is drawn from the 1861 autobiography of Harriet Jacobs, a formerly enslaved woman who, for seven years after her escape, lived in a crawlspace she described as a “loophole of retreat.” Jacobs claimed this site as simultaneously an enclosure and a space for enacting practices of freedom—practices of thinking, planning, writing, and imagining new forms of freedom.”