I’d like to think that most of us have or will experience love at some point in our lives. It’s a feeling that even when defined, the words fail to do it justice. However, like bell hooks states in her best-selling book, “All About Love,” there are no guarantees and unfortunately, just as soon as we experience love, we can experience heartbreak. There’s a risk we take when we choose to love another. Raven Irabor took that risk, which led her to a path of self recovery and discovery.
In a conversation with GROWN, Pan-African image maker, model, and curator Raven Irabor gets personal while discussing her first curated exhibition, “Last Night I Cried… Unveiling Liminal Spaces.” The exhibition, which opened in April, is an exploration of heartbreak, the passage of time and the healing journey.
You mentioned the first line of the recent SZA album as the inspiration for your exhibition, is there anything else that inspired your first curation?
The project came to be because I was going through a really emotional breakup and at the time my now friend Sasha and I were DM’ing because we wanted to work together. Two weeks later I hit him up with the photoshoot idea. I really wanted to do something that was healing and cathartic for me. We did the shoot two months after my ex and I stopped speaking. I was really focused on getting back into myself so I started going to therapy, I went to an esthetician, I got a trainer. I was trying to do things again to find myself and get back to who I was. The shoot was another form of that, similar to therapy.
Originally, the idea was to do this shoot and submit it to magazines but as I continued on my healing journey and saw how absolutely beautiful the photos came out — I realized it captured so much. I was also talking to a lot of women who were more empathetic towards me than I anticipated. Typically when you go through heartbreak people are like “get over it.” That was not the energy I needed. I was very much in my sad girl bag, and it was nice that no one gave me that. Instead, people were like “Oh, I’m so sorry; I know how hard that could be.” It made me think about the value of community healing. Thinking about all these things made me realize how blessed I was/am to have access and community. I decided to expand and create this exhibition that was focused on creating a space for community healing for women of color.
What was the first step after the decision to expand?
I started doing research on how women are impacted by breakups in comparison to men. How does it impact depression, sadness, and anxiety? I learned that women tend to ruminate, we tend to think about things. If there’s a guy that we like, we tend to think about our future together immediately. Rumination causes us to stay stuck on something longer than we need to, further pushing us into a state of depression after breakups. I also started thinking about the cultural nuances of relationships, so I created a film as part of the exhibition where I interviewed women from different age groups and cultural backgrounds. I wanted to explore cultural differences and normalize breakups because breakups are a part of life, heartbreak is a part of life.
This photoshoot was the first time I worked with a somatic intimacy consultant, and during our prep process she gave me this book by Brené Brown called “Atlas of the Heart.” How she defined heartbreak stuck out to me. It feels obvious that if you’re going through a breakup that the emotions you’re experiencing are of heartbreak, but it wasn’t until I read her definition did it dawn on me that I was heartbroken. Sometimes you need words to help you navigate and identify what you’re going through.
Walk us through the creative process. Why was it important to include sound and film?
I really wanted it to be immersive. I think this comes from my dance background and putting on shows and performances. Film includes different creative practices, like music and costume, so I tend to think of the holistic experience, what the user experience is going to be like. When we go to a gallery or a museum sometimes we look at the work passively. It may be cool but we’re just passing by and not really taking in what we’re seeing. I feel like music does a really good job of forcing you to take in what you’re seeing because music can be so emotive, so that’s why I wanted to work with SIRA to create this custom score that played as people were looking at the space. The score was intentionally crafted after she saw the layout. It walked people through the story and the ebbs and flows of heartbreak. So thinking about the subtitle “Unveiling Liminal Spaces,” or even the main title, a lot of what we explore in the exhibition is time and how time is a part of the healing journey. The music really goes through the ebbs and flows of that, sometimes you may feel good and a couple of weeks later you may cry again and a couple weeks later you may be on a different energy. I wanted the music and the order of the imagery to really reflect the highs and lows of the human process – because it’s not linear.
I also personally love how photography and film interact as mediums. Photography is very nostalgic and reflective, and film is really engaging and forces dialogue. The film really helps expound on the theme of heartbreak to show no matter your age, group, or cultural background this is something that all women can experience. As I saw people walk around the space and experience the work, it was really nice to hear people say that the film fully allowed them to get a deeper perspective of the work. The intention of just making it immersive was one, important to decenter myself and, two, to really allow people to dive deep into the emotion because the point was to create a space of community healing. If we’re looking at things passively then we can’t really have inner or external dialogue, and without any form of dialogue can you actually heal?
Why do you think women and Black women in particular experience heartbreak differently?
I think everyone experiences the foundations of heartbreak the same. I think Black women are not allowed to feel it. We’re forced to show up as strong or forced to get things done, so we’re not allowing ourselves to get to heal in the way we want to. In our community there is this notion that you need to move on. There isn’t a lot of empathy. I think Black women don’t experience empathy at all, in any capacity.
Can we talk about your own heartbreak and healing? How has the healing journey gotten you here and where is here currently?
I didn’t expect the exhibition to have some triggering elements. Having to talk about heartbreak so many times, a lot of the programming required a lot of dialogue – so if I am requesting people to be vulnerable & share their stories, I had to do the same as well. Having to be vulnerable opened doors that I thought were closed.
How did the collaboration with She Recovers come about and do you think art and recovery go hand in hand?
She Recovers was our nonprofit partner and we donated about 50% of the profit from the exhibition to them. They help women and women of color with mental health resources and what I love about this organization is that they focus on self recovery. For me, when I was going through my breakup and my own healing journey, getting a trainer and going to an esthetician were all things I had to cultivate for my own recovery.
Going back to the intention of the exhibition being a space for community healing, attendees came to the space to experience art but the space also opened up dialogue for healing. I feel like art can be a pathway or a door opener on people’s healing journey. One of the programs that we did have was titled “Exploring Art’s Healing Power” and we had people on the panel who were either art therapists or mindfulness artists, showing the gamut of what the intersection of art and wellness could look like. We were able to give people practical resources. I was really keen on having people walk away with the tools to utilize art, whether they are the makers or absorbers to help them on their own journey.
Which moments in your life have led to the most self discovery?
This heartbreak, I’ve learned about myself exponentially. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Having to deal with the different stages of it, from being emotionally in it where I’m crying everyday, needing to sleep all the time, to having a trainer and getting my revenge body. I feel like I had to go through so much. I started trying to rationalize his behavior which in some ways allowed me to understand people better: the pros and cons of people and how they show up and why they do things. I think women can also obsess with that, trying to understand the other person’s actions. You can’t really spend all your time trying to figure someone out. It’s not good for the mental, emotional, and spiritual self. Understand what you can, learn what you can, and then let go. This experience amongst so many other things I’ve experienced during this Saturn return created room for me to be more resilient, firm, closer to God, aware, trusting of the journey, and ironically enough open to love.
How will this impact your work going forward?
I think about my potential role as a healer with art. This experience with the exhibition and seeing how it has been healing for myself and other people, made me wonder if I’d want to continue to create spaces for healing and doing more intersections with the wellness community.
With any artist you’re always going to pull from your experiences. Even if I’m not talking about breakups, but I’m talking about love I know I will pull from moments in my relationships to help bring the story to life. It will trickle itself into my work unintentionally, maybe intentionally, depending on the topic. I have been thinking a lot about healing and the idea that everyone has a role to play in the fight for liberation within the diaspora. I think one of my roles is to inspire people and to use art as a form of community building.
How do we think we can come together to collectively heal and leave space for each other?
I think giving people grace is really important. I don’t think we give others and ourselves enough grace. For the most part everyone is trying their best. Everyone is trying everyday to hopefully improve and be their best selves. We only have this one life and I don’t want to walk around this earth with hatred in my heart. I also think it is important to release anger. A lot of us have this anger and bitterness that creates a blocker within our spirit. Truly letting go of anger opens the door for our healing journey.
What’s next for Raven Irabor and “Last Night I Cried… Unveiling Liminal Spaces?”
I will be featured during Sip & Sonder’s October Artist of the Month showcase in LA! We’ll be showing a smaller version of the exhibition with some of the photography and film, as well as selling merch as an extension of the experience. On October 29th we’ll be having an artist talk and special screening of my film, “Lessons from Heartbreak.” Doors open at 7pm!
Check out the “Last Night I Cried… Unveiling Liminal Spaces” gallery walkthrough below!
