Red Notes are recordings of tones, observations, and gestures that transmit sharp and expressive qualities often associated with the psychological characteristics of red. A red note oscillates between numbness and intensity; it can be overtly obvious in visibility or embrace obscurity. Regardless of the spectrum, reading and identifying a red note is a deeply personal activity rooted in one’s connection to sentiment and sociology.
This workshop presents Shameekia Shantel Johnson’s ongoing project Red Notes, which draws on a process of deep listening to attune to the synesthetic intensities of the color. Red Notes explores Black people’s psycho-spiritual relationship to color and its conceptualization of social space, turning to Black music and its power to shape culture and the body’s ongoing conversation with the landscapes it frequently inhabits. Taking shape in the symbiotic relationship between epigenetics and ecology, the project poses the question: How does identifying red notes change the social and physical conditions that shape the lives of Black people?
In this workshop, participants will review writings by Toni Morrison, music by Cécile McLorin Salvant, artworks by Shala Miller, and more to consider the hue’s three-dimensionality and create red notes of their own.
About the instructor
Shameekia Shantel Johnson is a writer, curator, and researcher of Afro-Caribbean descent from New York City. Johnson works from a critical framework of social architecture, in which she considers the multidimensional relationship between people, politics, narrative, and environment. Currently, Johnson is perfecting her nomenclature Red Notes, which will exist as written texts and a series of live experiences.