In August, 2015, Project Row Houses invited Onajide Shabaka to participate in their Summer Studios Program (together with contemporary artists, Yanira Collado and Carlos Sandoval De Leon). Shabaka and the two other artists were on site to conduct studio visits with the local artists who participated in the Summer Studio 2015. The three visiting artists also presented a public lecture on their art practices during their first evening.
Before arriving in Houston, Shabaka had spent several previous weeks engaged in his walking practice, in both urban and rural environments (Ohio and Minnesota) where he took advantage of the especially rich locales for exploring the streets, empty lots, and forest paths for useful, edible wild botanicals to photograph, identify, and forage. At the end of each day visiting Summer Studios Shabaka took the opportunity to participate in his walking practice through the Houston’s Third Ward urban environment exploring both the flora and architecture.
In addition to the botanicals Shabaka also explored the notion of the border as a territory of non-dialog, artifice and hidden messages. Shabaka’s explorations around the Third Ward was processed as a sculptural installation, which resulted in the creation of a skeletal work in which line, balance and absence are significant, in addition to its material and mass.