Larissa Rogers at CSUF Grand Central Art Center

CSIF Grand Central Art Center (GCAC) in Downtown Santa Ana (DTSA) presents new works by Larissa Rogers, – We’ve Always Been Here, Like Hydrogen, Like Oxygen.

Artist LaRissa Rogers washes her body as a ritual of labor and self-care. She does this on the Richmond Slave Trail and the African Burial Ground in Richmond, VA, and places her body in these locations to comment on notions of safety within public and private spheres. The spaces in which Black people and their bodies should be safe and cared for yet are vulnerable and exposed. The use of oranges stems from the Latasha Harlins Murder of ‘92 but becomes a metaphor for talking about the erasure of women of color throughout time and space.She washes her body with oranges and oranges cast from orange juice on one screen, while slowly caressing and subsequently melting a frozen orange on the other. The text alternates on both screens, one side speaking to the physical and psychological repercussions of white supremacy and the other reflecting upon the need for love, safety, and restoration to expand the spaces and possibilities for black people to exist without being under a constant state of threat.