Wes Taylor
Black Portal
I am a print maker, designer, musician, animator, educator, mentor, and curator. I root my practice in performance and social justice. My work combines, oscillates between, and blurs these different disciplines. My work is multi-disciplinary as well as anti-disciplinary. My individual practice is inextricably linked to my constellation of collectives and networks I have formed over 20 years. Those collectives include: Complex Movements, Talking Dolls Detroit, Design Justice Network, Athletic Mic League, and All Faux Everythings. My work is inspired by elder knowledge, complex science, 90s underground hip hop, punk aesthetics, and science fiction. I am an associate professor at Wayne State University and I split my time between Detroit, and Stockholm Sweden where I am a fellow in the OPI (Of Public Interest) Lab at the Kungl. Konsthögskolan.
About the Shop
Black Portal is a growing universe of site activations, artistic experiments and community-led projects rooted in Detroit's Conant Gardens neighborhood. Anchored by an 8,500-square-foot historic theater on Davison Avenue, Black Portal reclaims a place shaped by history and opens it to new possibilities. Through architecture, sound, performance, film, technology, and public gathering, the project creates immersive experiences that invite people to imagine different relationships to land, culture, and one another. As the project evolves, Black Portal is building both a destination for experimental art and a platform for Black creativity, collaboration, and collective future.