ILE OMI: House of Water
 by: Mz. Icar

2024 Schedule of Events:

• Saturday May 11th, Opening Reception
  Toast the night! Reserve your spot HERE.
  
• Sunday May 26th, Music in the Courtyard
  An afternoon to gather ... via North x Northside!
• Saturday & Sunday June 8th & 9th
  An Underwater Dinner Experience ... Reserve your table HERE.
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• Tuesday June 18th
  Juneteenth EVE! ... Tickets Available
  
• Wednesday, June 19th,
  Final Viewing (Daytime Only)
  Details to follow.

Ile Omi: House of Water is a large scale, multi-channel immersive video installation, inspired by intersectional African Diasporic culture, West African culture and chronophysics, the field of physics that specifically deals with the concept of time and time travel.

It showcases a thriving underwater community throughout various times. The imagined people are the descendants of the African souls lost during transatlantic slave voyages. The installation transports visitors to a futuristic world where these descendants have adapted to an underwater lifestyle and formed a thriving, communal society.



The video installation creates an immersive underwater environment filled with vibrant colors, textures, and sounds. The work contains a blend of iconography and images inspired by various traditional West African religions and Yoruba customs and imaginings of what a future derived from this experience would look, sound and feel like. Visitors are invited to explore this underwater world and to witness the communities rich cultural traditions, innovative technologies, and harmonious relationships with the surrounding marine ecosystem.

The project uses a combination of archival photography, AI-generated photographs, combined with a custom score to create an alternate reality where visitors can explore alternative histories and futures that were previously deemed impossible. By presenting this alternate reality, the installation invites visitors to re-imagine the potential of humanity and to question the limitations imposed by history and circumstance.

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About the artist:
Mz. Icar is an anonymous art collective predominantly comprised of Black Women, which stands at the intersection of artistic innovation and societal transformation.

Their collective name, “racIzM,” spelled backward, serves as a guiding principle, symbolizing their mission to upend conventional constructs of gender and race. In turn, they recognize these identifiers as fluid concepts, deeply influenced by the nuances of time, place, and context. Seen not as restrictions, but rather, perspectives through which we interpret the world, explore our identities, and drive our creative journey.

Their art transcends traditional boundaries, making its mark on streets and public spaces -- from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to Erie, Pennsylvania -- where they've created captivating murals, each carrying a unique narrative. Their media also emcompases a variety of disciplines, included immersive installations, augmented reality, and projection-mapped animations that bring public spaces to life.

Support provided by ArtsWave and Ohio Arts Council.