Ember of a Water Dream was created as a performance video piece for Ampersand Live, an annual storytelling event produced by Ampersand Magazine. The piece is imagined as an origin story for Wa Na Wari, the anti-displacement social practice art project co-created by Inye Wokoma, Elisheba Johnson, Jill Freidberg and Rachel Kessler.
Ember of a Watery Dream mythologizes the life story of Frank Green, a patriarch of his extended family and grandfather to Inye Wokoma. Beginning in early childhood, the piece delves into Frank’s interior life as the child of tenant farmers in rural Arkansas. It follows him as he and his family make his dreams manifest in Seattle, Washington during the years of the Great Migration and beyond. Ember of a Watery Dream follows this story as the family confronts gentrification, displacement, resistance, and new beginnings in the form of Wa Na Wari.
Ember of a Watery Dream brought the richness of this story to Ampersand Live, Ampersand Magazine, and by extension Forterra, the umbrella organization of these ventures. As a Washington State land trust, Forterra supports sustainability and resiliency across the state by working for the region’s communities and ecosystems. In its 30-year history, Forterra has helped conserve more than 250,000 acres, with its work stretching from the farmlands and river canyons of Yakima to the estuaries and forests of Washington’s coastline. In recent years the organization has taken an inward look at the role of land justice for Indigenous and other marginalized communities. This has resulted in land conservancy projects that focus on supporting work in communities focused on anchoring themselves for their collective well-being. It is with this intention that Inye was invited to create a piece for Ampersand live. A piece steeped in the values of the Green Family and the mission of Wa Na Wari to create resilience in Black communities in the face of displacement.
This first video is of the live performance. The second video is the projected piece accompanying the live reading.
Runtime: 6:50
Created: 2019