Hello and welcome to Innervision, Lafayette Anticipations’ audio tour podcast designed by the facilitation team. Let us take you on a sound journey to the heart of contemporary creation. Season 1: Wu Tsang’s visionary company exhibition. 

We have walked up the staircase bathed in an orange glow to the second floor of the Foundation. The grey carpet has given way to the dark linoleum typical of dance studios. We are greeted by a blue neon light like those inside a club. On the left, a large space opens up that receives the only source of seemingly natural light from the ceiling. This second room appears much airier than the first. We seem to have arrived in the middle of a conversation emitted by a video projection on the other side of the room. 

A murmur accompanies us from the first floor through the ventilation grilles on the floor. We recognize the soundtrack of The show is over, which reaches us from below. 

The sounds of another, very rhythmic soundtrack can be heard from somewhere else, beyond the walls of the first floor, probably from above. All the sounds of the exhibition meet and blend together. We return to the examination of the blue neon light that had first caught our eye. 

The work, approximately 1.5 metres high and 2 metres wide, has the form of a wooden shipping crate. Glazed on the front, it contains an illuminated sign with the message “The Fist is still up” reflecting into infinity in two-way glass. In the darkness of the room, it reminds us of the landscapes of North American pop culture, more specifically of the world of nightlife. Through the evocation of this fist, still raised, the installation takes us back to the activist milieu, while reminding us that this struggle is not yet over. This sign asserts itself as the reminiscence of a place co-founded by Wu Tsang dedicated to art and activism, particularly medical and administrative assistance for queer migrants in Los Angeles in the 2000s. It is therefore a piece drawn from the margins, resistance, and community self-help that is integrated into the museum space. 

The title of the work itself contains this profoundly ambiguous double reference: Safe Space. “Safe” can refer to a strongbox, while “safe space” also refers to a place created by and for marginalized communities to meet, exchange, and organize. All the tension in this work then becomes clear, between the registers of community and institution, where the space, usually protected from the dominant gaze, finds itself in public view, both protected and imprisoned by this box.

We continue towards the large central space on our left. We think we can recognize James Baldwin’s voice rising up through the sound of the saxophone.