Shug Avery’s Kiss | On Religion + Spirituality: Tiona Nekkia McClodden with Ashley Tai

Event Description: As part of her Session project, Tiona Nekkia McClodden has organized a series of conversations in which she will be paired with a woman in her life to talk intimately and freely about a theme or topic related to Shug Avery within the physical space of Shug Avery’s Kiss. McClodden considers Avery to be her first example of an “uncompromising woman committed to a full self, inclusive of all the various identities she possesses….” Gathering with her discussant at a single table, it is McClodden’s hope to explore the various aspects of herself through dialogue with the women who mirror the respective theme of each conversation. There will be no Q+A and no audience participation during these conversations. There will be music and drinks before and after the conversation for everyone in the spirit of the juke joint. BYOB. For this second conversation, McClodden will talk with performance artist Ashley Tai on the topics of religion and spirituality as they relate to the following prompt:

I.

“Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.

It? I ast.

Yeah, It. God ain’t a he or a she, but a It.

But what do it look like? I ast.

Don’t look like nothing, she say. It aint a picture show. It ain’t something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found It.”

-The Color Purple

Alice Walker