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pressed roots blog

@pressed.roots

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a journal + visual archive documenting black and native land history 🌿 • @ indian territory, oklahoma 🌞

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through the horrors of the middle passage and then the bondage that took place across turtle island, it was the seed of a collard green that survived with our ancestors. 🤍 tucked inside each collard green is a story of our generational creativity, resilience, love, and tradition. today we give thanks to the foods that stood by our ancestors — the foods that continue to feed us and our families today. 🥬✨🪕🌱

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@pressed.roots was created in 2018 to shine a light on the meeting place between southern black and native land relationships. our goal is to build a virtual dinner table where we can chat about our unique knowledge and ring our stories into the future. if you can, support the archivist and creator of @pressed.roots:

cashapp: $careyxo
venmo: @bearsgotcash by @pressed.roots

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4 years ago

#fieldnotes: thinking about this drum made by an enslaved ancestor/artist in virginia in the 1700s. this drum was made on virginia soil w/ local materials (cedar + deerskin), and designed with such detail that it’s maker’s ethnicity can be directly traced back to the ashanti people in ghana. this is the story of someone’s embodied memory, their resourcefulness.

the technical skill, the maker, the process of bridging two worlds through craft; as painful or as cathartic as that was, is what i see in this drum.

artists, even our ancestors in captivity who made banjos, drums, ironwork, & pottery — were telling a story of a worldview through their work, through the circumstances of their time. i continue that practice of creating through the fire — with a deep knowing that each new artifact, created painstakingly, holds an entire world, a possibility, a message to every direction of time. taken in Virginia by @pressed.roots

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10 months ago

came back and took a big inhale of memory this week.
felt every cell in my body stir alive,
my skin lighting up w goosebumps.

it’s always on these long stretches of highway
where i feel my grandparents —
the web of my connections,
in community, ancestry,
in the trees, and skyline.

i know im not the first to travel this path, and i wont be the last.

.. no matter how far i go down this highway,
my world will always begin and end here.
forever entangled, knotted, unfolding —
it seems like my whole life i’ve been practicing
𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙚 𝙛𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @pressed.roots

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3

a year ago

got to eat my first blackberry off the new lands today while on a hike. made me feel more at home in a new place. lil rituals from home i’m bringing with me. a sincere gesture of coming to know a place, how much it means to be somewhere that’s not mine, but that’s bringing something out of me. this is how i’ve connected to oklahoma since i was little, harvesting fruit with my cousins, sister, and grandparents. using it to make something beautiful & lasting. i want this situation to be mutual. thanks california for bringing me on pure gut intuition and ohlone people for keeping such a special place. i’ll always respect the wonder and lessons from these lands.

i’m glad i found some blackberry — a small, circular reminder of how far i’ve come on this blog, in my life. my favorite foraged fruit. i just barely missed harvest season back home. but im learning the possibility of comfort might belong anywhere.

new home grounding rituals from endless convos w @brittpostoak ✨🍓🫐 taken in Berkeley, California by @pressed.roots

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a year ago

black dandyism reminds me that afro ecology, in my mind, is ever expansive. it includes our relationships to plants, landscapes, and sites of meaning yes — I think it also touches on the unique ways we orient bodies and ourselves within our own life, culture, and society.

akin to a cultural mycelium — black style carries memory and adapts to harm. dandyism surely helped our ancestors negotiate space, possibly safety, and life — while keeping that dance entirely creative, effortless looking, and beautifully black. maybe style is a gesture toward place making; a cartography all its own — where instead of being mapped, one maps themselves through fabric, texture, silhouette, and the perfect fit.

tailored clothing. specially made to fit the body — likely from cotton, which carries its own unique and intertwining history of misuse — suggests an attempt to rewrite the narrative, and assert a new way in the world.

many forces colliding birthed black dandyism. what captures my eye though are the beautiful black aesthetics that cut so gracefully through it all.

across any medium, circumstance, and time, we assert a creative soul and emergent beauty that never fails to touch me. it’s the same beauty that always calls me back into the archive.

it’s in this archival space, where i find the infinite soul i was taught to sing with growing up, where I feel a timeless pulse, a life force — this infinite pool to draw from and be with.

in college they told us about the study of black aesthetics, and i didn’t know what that really meant until i connected it to how i felt. i enjoy understanding this liminal space deeper as i come to know life deeper. my medium of choice being my own felt knowledge. my feeling is a method — mapping me back to everything there ever was.

last night was a joy, and a ritual. a collective drawing backward and forward, happening in one timeless pulse. folding time, we create something new. the archives are always speaking, together we call back.

featuring family photos — oklahoma black and afro-indigenous (cherokee freedmen citizen + mvskoke citizen) dandy. 💕🪡🔥 taken in Indian Territory, Oklahoma by @pressed.roots

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a year ago

🪡🧵✨Calling all Black quilters, artists, crafters, researchers, archivists, and storytellers based in Canada/US! 🪡🧵✨Apply for 𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡 𝗜𝗜 by Mar 10th, 11:59PM EST - link in bio!

We invite you to apply to 𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡 𝗜𝗜, the 2nd annual cohort of our experimental 4 week Black quilting project in tribute to Daughters of Dorcas, the oldest running Black quilt guild in North America! Alongside 30 participants, explore Black archives, preserve the modern and traditional practice of quilting, & co-sew a cross national collaborative quilt to pay homage to Black textile communities of the past, present, and future! 🧶

We will connect over the topics of slow craft, Black feminist perspectives on cultural preservation, and the enduring importance of community, survival, and placemaking for Black communities via the bountiful @quiltalliance audio archive. Each participant will create a quilt square that will be digitally archived and physically sewn into a community quilt.

Weekly sessions take place on Zoom, Saturdays 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM EST, from April 26th to May 17th.

We’re seeking a range of perspectives and are excited about applicants of all experience levels (novice, intermediate, advanced), ages, and genders from Canada/US. Free sewing kits available upon request!

The 𝑻𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒏𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 aims to manifest creative depictions of Black past, presents and futures through exhibitions, craft, collective gathering, technology, folk arts and education. Co-Directors @ashleyjanelewis and @moss.portals use archival processes and speculative design to preserve Black culture, connect ancestral knowledge and consider new tools for liberated worlds.

𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡 𝗜𝗜 is funded by Creativity Everything lab within @thecreativeschl at @torontomet. Creativity Everything lab takes a deliberately broad and inclusive approach to creativity, connecting ideas from a range of disciplines, and seeking to embrace a diverse range of creators and creative practices. We are grateful for Creativity Everything lab’s support in making 𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗡 𝗜𝗜 possible✨ taken in North America by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago

our stories always make a way — so just tell ‘em 🍂🍠 mrs. abby fisher’s story always sits in my heart as a point of inspiration. her life is a reminder of how important it is to tell our stories — and how they can transcend time even. ✨🌀 by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago

add, cleanse, love, let go, repeat. 🌙🍂🪔 | feeling all the good beginnings and endings with this eclipse in libra. i’ve learned that what stays and what goes — both parts — constitute each other, build one another up and create the whole. zooming out and looking at life on a wider lens helps you see the artistic details of your own journey forming right in front you. and so much is moving on the unseen level. i know it’s all adding up, i know this is where i’m meant to be. by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago

one more time for black oklahoma. we are thriving as a people and the world finally sees the beauty, that our families always raised us to see in ourselves. and you’ll never meet a prouder people. always love this time of year and the warmth and nostalgia it brings. oklahoma summers are everything for my soul ☀️ | shot on film with love, while visiting the east side. happy juneteenth & thank you black texas. 🖤✨ taken in East Side Okc by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago

across the diaspora and the south, my people (in the midst of crisis) imagined freedom. it wasn’t “given” to us — it was creatively imagined and willed to be. like dominos falling, our first phase of freedom was both connected *and* inevitable. ✨ i read and learn ancestral stories in intimate detail to honor the countless lives lived, lost, and survived. i can see how archival knowledge directly connects to my grandparent’s shared knowledge and stories, which then connects back to my own experience and understanding — melting time. and while trauma can create silence, families always talk and the archives are loud (they affirm what we already know). and memory always stretches forward. 🌀

bearing witness to the difficulties, intimacies, and emergent beauty of the past (and especially the era of slavery) helps me understand the present and co-construct a future — with deeper memory and greater love. ✨ happy juneteenth! taken in Oklahoma by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago

this weekend was the black wall street legacy festival, which commemorates the greenwood (or “black wall street”) race massacre which took place 103 years ago on may 31-june 1, 1921. on that day, a racist mob, police, and the us government burned and bombed a flourishing, and segregated black community to the ground.

thank god for the endurance of black oklahoma. truly the toughest people you’ll ever meet: some of us come from folks who fled from the deeper south, others’ survived the trail tears under slavery or freedom, & others saw opportunity and happily migrated. living along so many intersecting histories and reasonings for being here creates an unshakeable generational memory. one that greenwood survivors and descendants have rightfully not allowed people to forget.

i often write about black relationships to land — harvested food, country lifestyles, and landscapes especially. but everywhere you go, even in a city, you’re interacting with layers and layers of land memory and black memory. memory can be unsettling, but it holds a lot of useful information and often love too. i think it also pulls us forward through time and space with the strength required to keep speaking, knowing. if anyone understands what that means and feels like, it’s an oklahoman.

the living land/ecological memory of greenwood massacre survivors and descendants, many of whom are from north tulsa, carries forward in a really strong way as i’ve witnessed. their vision for the future is the guidance we not only need, but spiritually require to move forward in a good way as tulsans. there are so many layers of memory here held by many — love, joy, genocide, and displacement — that must be accepted to move forward — with memory. i say this with an enduring love for my folks in oklahoma and across the world: end the ongoing genocide and displacement, reparations now, and land back. 💫

justiceforgreenwood.com

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main sources include: interviews of greenwood survivors & their descendants who are named in screenshots, justice for greenwood, oklahoma historical society, tulsa library, gilcrease museum, news9, blackwallstreetwomen.com

apologies for any errors/open to correction. 🤍 taken in Greenwood Historical District, Tulsa by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago

happy earth day 🌱 a few thoughts:

our ancestors earth-based methods remind us to love the land and love each other.

earth stories unsettle colonialism and center the truth.

the first and oldest “human computer interaction” is us with our natural environment. the earth is brilliant. our creations like corn, ancestral mounds, supporting apricot saplings and gardens, and gathering wild greens for dinner can only occur in deep relationship.

the earth keeps its own record of time and i love to observe and live and harvest within it. we are always in a relationship with time, ecologically.

a love for the land is a fertile meeting ground and point of connection among people.

our outer environment and inner environment are reflections of each other.

our parents and grandparents have land-based stories that might surprise us. everyday we’re adding to the story for future generations. embedded in these stories is a tale of love, memory, care, and futurity. taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma by @pressed.roots

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2 years ago