Exodus Home by Jay Simple

Issue 150

My friend Anthony Francis posted a video in which he outlined how COVID made us self-isolate indoors and through this we found a desire for the streets, for socialization. At the same time, we were forced to sit inside and watch police murder those who ventured outside. A proverbial fourth wall crumbles. When I think about my surroundings and the work I do, I think of the resiliency in every breath, the courage and jubilation in defiantly being present, and the tragedy of standing, or kneeling, or dying in Babylon.

Jay Simple’s work is a pointed critique of the racial and social state of affairs in the United States. His collages and sculptures are made from archival images, ephemera and thrifted material. Simple combines these media to contextualize the Great Migration (1916–1970), a period in which Black people from the agrarian South escaped in droves to industrializing metropolises in the hopes of escaping racial terror. This installation references many moments of racial violence and oppression that Black people have suffered, alongside imagined moments of joy including a depiction of an Apollo mission crew of all Black women. Simple’s compositions are replete with historical allusions that draw from his painstaking research, delving into the past with a thoughtful nuance that encompasses anger, compassion, sorrow and hope.

Jay Simple (he/him) lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.
www.jaysimple.com | @jaysimplephoto

Images © Jay Simple