Body of Color

Naima Lowe’s Installation ‘Ropes, Pinks’ Uncoils Trauma in Pursuit of Black Freedom

Consisting of three lengths of cotton and hemp rope of varying thicknesses—200 feet in all—dyed in shades of pink, “Ropes, Pinks” is an installation work by artist Naima Lowe. This “body” changes each time it is installed, adapting to and challenging the space where it finds itself attempting to be at home. In so doing, it twines itself around and among questions of racist horror, gender, intimacy, vulnerability, history, and love.

Lowe has exhibited videos, performances, and installations throughout the United States and created the independent art and design imprint Trial …

More In: Glimpses

How a Charismatic Populist Destroyed Christmas | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How a Charismatic Populist Destroyed Christmas

One Hundred Years Ago, Italian Nationalists Went to War With Their Own Country, Bringing the Border City of Fiume a ‘Christmas of Blood’

In 1920, in a small town outside Turin, Italy, 17-year-old Luigi De Michelis was everything his middle-class parents could have asked for. His teachers liked him, which was important to …

Bound Together Across an Arbitrary Dividing Line | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Bound Together Across an Arbitrary Dividing Line

Regionalia Explores an Alternative Form of Citizenship on the U.S.-Mexico Border

The word region comes from the Latin regere, meaning “to rule.” It is etymologically related to the Latin regio or “district.” In turn, “district” comes from the Latin distringere meaning …

The Era of the Girl Is Now | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Era of Change Is Now

Las Fotos Project Celebrates 10 Years of Viewing Los Angeles Through the Lens of Young Women

The 18 teenagers logged onto Zoom that Thursday evening had every reason to sound weary. It had been, collectively speaking, a rough week in the rough fall of 2020. During …

Repainting History in Technicolor | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Repainting History in Technicolor

Esiri Erheriene-Essi’s ‘Familiar Strangers’ Finds New Recognition in Photographs of the Mid-Century African Diaspora

The earliest colored photographs were fragile black-and-white daguerreotypes, hand-painted with a watercolor technique. The task was laborious, not to mention risky, because the plates were so easily damaged. But the …

How My Great-Grandfather Dealt With a Lout Named Jack London | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How My Great-Grandfather Dealt With a Lout Named Jack London

A Muralist Finds Herself Captivated by the Bay Area Writer, Crusader for Justice, and Drunken Brawler

Growing up in the Bay Area, I heard a lot of family lore about Jack London, and my great-grandfather George Samuels.

Samuels had been a district attorney, a police court judge, …