Stan State University Art Gallery presents an exhibition by Cauleen Smith running from October 19th, 2026 to December 18th, 2026.
Sojourner expands the possibilities of utopian imagination through visuals spanning Philadelphia, Chicago, and California. Voice-overs connect the mystical writings of John Coltrane with those of Rebecca Cox Jackson, a Black Shaker eldress who described astral journeys a century earlier. Their voices, alongside readings from the Combahee River Collective’s 1977 manifesto, are transmitted through vintage radios to a collective of young women of color. Carrying vibrant banners with poetic phrases, they move through beaches, protest sites, and the Watts Towers Arts Center before arriving at Noah Purifoy’s Outdoor Desert Art Museum near Joshua Tree, California. There, they gather among Purifoy’s large-scale assemblages and recreate a 1966 photograph of stylish young men at Watts Towers, transforming the original image into a feminist statement of collective identity and empowerment.
About the Artist
Cauleen Smith’s art and filmmaking has always been driven by histories of Black brilliance that resonate across time. Listening closely to the spiritual and musical philosophies of composer, performer, and swamini Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (1937–2007) has inspired Smith’s recent works. Smith’s cinematic collages connect Coltrane’s transformative visions to others who create spaces for liberation from the nineteenth century to the present.