/PEOPLE
Ari Robey-Lawrence, Eric Porter
MEET WOOD // WORK
“The personal connections and collaborative relationships that we have among one another pre-date the existence of the collective. A group of four of us were first acquainted in 2013 (some knew each other for at least a decade prior) in Berlin, and our friendships became solidified over that fall/winter season, and in the following years to come. We spent years building up kinship ties, jamming together, and engaging in deeper existential conversations around the artistic experience as Black folks, some as Black with intersectional identities. “wood//work” came to Ari in a moment of epiphany during a late night hangout with friends and chosen family in 2017. They still have the original drawing/ chart that gave birth to the collective name in their archives, at home in Berlin.”
“Music, or rhythm, is the foundation in our collective; as it is in the Universe. While we are rooted and connected through sound, and we express ourselves and support expression in all forms of art and creative existence. Currently this manifests in musical and live performance, and soon through our film festival and other forms of future creative-cultural interventions.”
“Steady growth and strength; roots to limbs and branches, may we leave our mark with each changing season.”
It feels like music is the foundation, but what is the complete artistic scope
What do the members of the collective each bring to the project individually? “The beauty of wood//work is that every participant is encouraged to draw on their experience, abilities and interests and then find a way to channel that into serving the collective and its needs.”
When you bring all of the members together what emerges? What is the personality of the Collective? “Unlike most popular culture, we love quirks. That’s what otherness is all about. When you combine individuals from various backgrounds, engaging in our Blackness together, what emerges is a joyful noise - an ever-expanding conversation on who we are.”
Adachi Pimental, Chris McWayne
When we caught up with the music and art collective wood//work, trees served as an instructive metaphor. Themes of cultivation, growth, branching organic networks, individual specialness, group strength, transformation, and propagation all figure into their vision as a collective of black artists working to manifest and celebrate a kind of fantastic black otherness in the world at large. They’d be the first to say that their collective is still just a sapling, but its roots already run deep and its leaves are collecting sun rays in Oakland CA, Berlin, NYC, and New Orleans.
of the collective? Is all art and creativity on the table?
What is the wood // work ethos?
Culturelines contributing editor Amani King, creative director of Avocados and Coconuts, spoke with Ari Robey-Lawrence, Eric Douglas Porter, Darice Jones, Chris McWayne, Adachi Pimentel and Khalil Anthony Peebles from the wood // work collective. When we consider a tree, we tend to think of its “above ground” presence – the trunk, the branches, the leaves. But so much of a tree lives underground, its roots drawing water and minerals in through mycelial networks, nourishing from below while photosynthesizing up above. From the root to the fruit, everything matters.
How did wood // work come into being? How did you find each other?
Consider a tree. The way it can grow and propagate from a single sapling to a networked forest. Consider wood//work. 16
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