erotics of flight
Curated by Allison K. YoungOctober 10 - November 1, 2026
paris cian and Ruth Owens
erotics of flight presents a constellation of works by paris cian and Ruth Owens that imagine the coastal landscapes of Louisiana, the circum-Caribbean, and the Black Atlantic as sites of fugitivity, ancestral memory, and eco-feminist erotics. Across painting, drawing, and sculpture, the artists invoke histories of marronage, or escape from enslavement on New World plantations. They envision the more-than-human ecologies of swamps, bayous, and mangrove forests as vital spaces of refuge and spiritual communion.
cian and Owens take seriously Audre Lorde’s conception of the erotic as central to the “lifeforce of women.” Lorde connects the erotic to a capacity for feeling deeply and thinking otherwise, through creativity, joy, and embodied self-knowledge. Owens’ paintings imagine speculative futures in which Black femme figures traverse intertidal landscapes, while cian visually disrupts the gallery space through installations of oyster shells, soil, and salvaged material. In their respective offerings, each artist invokes ephemeral ecologies and spatial practices of fugitivity. erotics of flight honors the gestures of love, courage, and resistance found across maroon histories and their contemporary resonances.
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