PLAY†PREY

with Leila Weefur

Telematic Arts | San Francisco, CA | 2021

PLAY † PREY is a two-part exhibition by Leila Weefur, with components at Telematic Media Arts and Minnesota Street Project, exploring the playful impulses, innocence, and underlying violence implicated in the experience of queer Black children in the Christian Church.

PLAY†PREY: The Old Testament, at Telematic, is a deconstruction of traditional Christianity, reckoning with colonial biblical history. The single-channel video installation is accentuated by Wax Monument VII (The Cross), a sculptural offering comprised of 506 palm-sized wax crosses, representing the number of times “fire” is mentioned in the bible. Wax Monument VII (The Cross) is created by Weefur’s long-time collaborator, Sandy Williams IV, the star actor in their previous work, Between Beauty and Horror.

Weefur’s PLAY†PREY: A Gospel, featured on the main floor at Minnesota Street Project in Gallery 106, recounts a relationship between God, the Church, and a queer Black child. The spiritual narrative takes inspiration from four lyrical sermons in James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.

In that great day,
People, in that great day,
God's a-going to rain down fire.
God's a-going to sit in the middle of the air
To judge the quick and the dead.

— “The Judgement Day” God’s Trombones: Seven Negro
Sermons in Verse, James Weldon Johnson

And God stepped out on space,

And he looked around and said:

I'm lonely

I'll make me a world.

— “The Creation” God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, James Weldon Johnson

Presented as three separate films playing simultaneously, Weefur’s installation builds a spiritual narrative that contemplates the structures, literally and metaphorically, and the rules imposed on pleasure, play, and sexuality under the rigidity of Black Christianity.

In the second collaboration with KYN (Josh Casey & Yari Bundy) and with contributions from vocalists from Sandra Lawson-Ndu, the film’s original soundtrack recreates elements familiar to Black Christian gospel, combined with contemporary influences, to create a textured and personal touch. Filmed in the Havensc Court Community Church (Oakland) where Weefur was baptized, the semi-autobiographical work also erects architectural structures reminiscent of the church.

Telematic Arts: PLAY † PREY DOCUMENTATION