In Pursuit of Recollection
Banna Desta
In Pursuit of Recollection
A reflection on Re–Fest 2025 in NYC
April 8, 2025
Artwork pictured: Midnight in Abyssinia by Banna Desta and Shariffa Ali
Photo by Rishika Nath
What mark do our collections make on the world? Part of my mission as an artist is to mend broken history. As a woman of African descent, records across the continent have been sabotaged, for any number of reasons; many due to colonization, exploitation, neglect from scholars, etc. I had a chance to reflect more deeply about what it meant to not only mend what’s missing, but recollect it. At the kaleidoscopic Re-Fest, Culture Hub’s annual festival that brings artists, activists, and technologists together for a four-day celebration of art and community, taking over three floors at La MaMa in the East Village. This year’s theme, Re-Collect, dealt with collecting as a practice, asking questions about the objects we hold on to, the ones we let go, and ones we cannot find, searching for ways to fill or embrace the gap.
Artworks pictured: Performance by Mobéy Lola Irizarry, Puncho’s Clowns Archival Set Backdrop courtesy of La MaMa Archive
Photo by Rishika Nath
In a darker room, a mirror reflects a mesmeric short film, narrated by a renown Iranian poet. In another, old family photos and documents of migration from Panama to the U.S. dot the walls, linked by red string. Each piece of work weaved its own spellbinding story of what was lost and what was gained —all while inspiring useful possibilities for the future. If human life is made up of matter, separate from mind and spirit, how much do we owe our belongings and why do we revere what has come before? New questions coursed through me as I made my way through each floor of La MaMa—In her piece The Amazing Women’s Club, artist Simone Salvo honored the death of her grandmother through a photo series, archiving images of objects she collected, including dozens of crosses assembled on the wall like sacrosanct polka dots. In their live performance piece for Re-Fest’s opening night, Mobéy Lola Izarry transported the packed crowd through time with a percussive ode to their musical roots in salsa and bomba.
Artworks pictured: The NDNs in the Shoebox by Liana Shewey
Photo by Rishika Nath
Artwork pictured: Care Processing Unit by Liza Stark
Photo by Rishika Nath
Some artists approached the work on a grand scale, like Emily Johnson, whose piece Then A Cunning Voice is a series of community-sewn quilts that took up an entire set of bleachers. Attendees were invited to step up onto the bleachers to take in the totality of the piece and read the messages people had written on some of the patches, including societal desires like “READ TO ELDERS” and “ASK QUESTIONS.” (And, on a more esoteric note, phrases like “FAT TOMATO.”)
Other artists went in the opposite direction in terms of scale, such as Jack Reynolds, whose jaggedly humorous piece Lighters Used Front to Back (in-progress) was tucked away in a stairwell. It featured a collection of every lighter Reynolds has ever owned, ruefully acknowledging “the ones that were lost or stolen. You know who you are.”
Artwork pictured: Material Speculation: ISIS by Morehshin Allahyari
Photo by Rishika Nath
Our collections are pure matter, metaphysical instruments and monuments of what once was. They are rich symbolism of what was created, dismantled and in some lucky cases, restored. On the fourth and final day of Re-Fest, attendees strolled through the open doors at noon. Sunlight floated its way through some of the rooms in the exhibit, the night before—and before, and before–already a collective memory.
Screening of Je Suis Fatigué by Jill Verhaeghe
Photo by Rishika Nath
Banna Desta is an Eritrean and Ethiopian-American playwright who crafts stories about and for the African diaspora.