"Story, Word, Sound, Sway is an exhibition of work by eleven Stamps School of Art & Design Alumni using performance, movement, text, sound, and design to interrogate systems of oppression and interrupt the status quo. It explores themes of alternative histories, archives, Black identity, collective memory, storytelling; meshing performance and performativity, and the interplay of the oral and aural in one’s experience of the world. An undercurrent of movement explored in multiple variations thread the works together, realized through a variety of methods including painterly gesture, repetitive mark-making, performance with an audience or without, spoken word, ambient sound, and reimagined instruments. The exhibition aspires to pull at the loosened threads of a social fabric in crisis, revealing larger complex histories and art discourses, nationally and internationally, framed through the experiences and trajectories of Stamps alumni during their time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication that will include interviews with each of the alumni artists conducted by current Stamps’ student and exhibition co-curator Moteniola Ogundipe."

To see more of the work from Story, Word, Sound, Sway, go to Stamps Gallery archive for the SWSS exhibition.

Each area of Story, Word, Sound, Sway was designed and oriented to reflect the featured artists' perspective, and movement through different mediums

Artist, Senghor Reid featured featured 4 paints that were informed by his relationship to water and the movement within it. Reids contribution to the exhibition is featured below.
(The pieces in order: Senghor Reid: The Night Is On My Mind , The Raw Space, Detroit, MI, 2019, Performance, 12 minutes. Blind Chance, 2016, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 60.” Borderline 5, 2019, Oil on board, 36” x 24.”Borderline 6, 2019, Oil on board, 36” x 24.” Knife in the Water, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 60.”

Artist, Levester Williams, featured a performance piece entitled Shift, Sift, Swoosh Bods, 2018, HD video, color, four audio channels, 17 minutes 33 seconds.

Artist, Wes Taylor, featured a collection of music, visual design, and photographs in an archival ensemble entitled Ann Arbor Undercommons.