shadowworking  is the newest creative endeavor by Kevin Bernard Moultrie Daye (KBMD), who, under the alias SPIRITUALS, produces innovative work that transcends conventional boundaries. This project materializes in both physical and musical forms. The physical exhibition uses technology to reimagine how monuments can honor a community’s shared history, de-materializing from the rigid monoliths of Western individualism and colonialism. 

Using 3D scans and robotic fabrication techniques, KBMD captures and recreates specific African masks in the University of Michigan’s collection. This process liberates these works from the confines of a conventional Western institution. It serves as an act of reclamation to emphasize the importance of having ownership and agency over cultural products.

shadowworking  features digitally fabricated sculptures that serve as a means to preserve and convey the collective history and stories of communities that have been displaced, like those from Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood. Visitors to the exhibition will explore these recreated homes, bathed in an eerie ultraviolet light cast by the ancestral masks. This immersive experience blends elements of a nightclub’s spectacle with the ceremony of an altar, giving rise to a unique encounter best described as embodying the concept of “Hoodoo tectonics.”

KBMD provides the musical element of shadowworking  under his stage name SPIRITUALS. Best described as “Diasporic Beat Science,” it seamlessly fuses aspects of modernist literature, blues modalities, robust beats, revolutionary poetry, arthouse cinema, and soulful vocals to birth something entirely new, aptly termed “Post-soul.” The accompanying EP will be released at the exhibition’s opening.

SPIRITUALS employs time as a versatile canvas, underscoring that culture transcends mere artifacts interwoven with rituals and the flow of time. This ongoing project reshapes the concept of “folk” art, erasing the boundaries between tradition and ingenuity.

Join us in celebrating all of the dimensions of shadowworking  at the opening on September 29th, featuring performances by SPIRITUALS, Zelooperz, HiTech, and sculptor Hamzat Raheem.