The beads suspended in Lhola Amira’s exhibit, “Facing the Future,” are like threads that connect the experiences of Black and Brown people, from the U.S. to Amira’s native South Africa and around the world.
Amira refers to the exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young Museum as a constellation rather than an installation. The haunting music and vocals that resonate in the background invoke pain, spirituality and ultimately healing. The human struggle mirrored in a poem by Lucille Clifton hanging among the beads.