For the past two decades, Jamal Cyrus has consistently envisioned points of connection between the present and the past, between history, music, protest, and ritual. In his work, he excavates and juxtaposes cultural moments, using materials that are densely evocative. Cyrus's work is meditation and commemoration, a distillation of political and social struggles, and an exploration of how improvisation can offer potent re-imaginings of history. With the installation of these four works, Cyrus has constructed a kind of imaginary museum space in which functional objects—clothing, musical instruments, quilts—are made from the productive collision of cultural referents. These objects hold the evocative overlap of seemingly diverse, but connected, places.
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