Cosmic Mumbo Jumbo
Cosmic Mumbo Jumbo, a screening program curated by Erin Christovale, followed by a conversation between the curator and Ra Malika Imhotep Cosmic Mumbo Jumbo is anchored in the esoteric musings of Snake Doctor, an artist, philosopher, and public figure in his Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The screening includes segments from the public access television show he hosted of the same name, created and produced by Adah Glenn (aka AfroPuff™), which aired between 1997 and 2007. Danielle Dean and Dineo Seshee Bopape’s experimental video works appear as pseudo-commercials between episodes of Cosmic Mumbo Jumbo , serving as call and response-like interventions into Snake Doctor’s mental landscape. Oscillating between candid sermons and hypnotic meditations, the works probe and explode familiar narratives of politics, capitalism, self-transformation, conspiracy theories, and the secret stories carried by objects and people. Following the screening, Christovale is joined by Imhotep to discuss the evolution of media platforms as tools for personal expression, image making, and archival preservation. This event marks the launch of the second program in the Kadist Video Library (KVL) Online Video Exhibition series. Cosmic Mumbo Jumbo is available to stream on KADIST.org from June 29 to July 29, 2019. Erin Christovale is the co-founder of the experimental film program, Black Radical Imagination , and the Associate Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Ra Malika Imhotep is a Black feminist writer + performance artist from Atlanta, Georgia currently pursuing a doctoral degree in African Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. With a designated emphasis in New Media Studies, Her work tends to the relationships between Black femininity, aesthetics, and the performance of labor. She is the co-convener of an Oakland-based experiential study group called The Church of Black Feminist Thought and member of the curatorial collective The Black Aesthetic.