The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) and BlackStar are proud to present Revival!, an audio-visual meditation celebrating the visual and sonic culture of shared Black spiritual experience.

Featuring an audio-visual mix by filmmaker and artist Rashid Zakat, this installation is an attempt to reimagine and practice what collective joy and resilience look like in times of crisis. Subtly drawing upon José Esteban Muñoz’s notion of ecstasy as “an invitation, a call to a then-and-there, a not-yet-here… a collective potentiality,” Revival! treats ecstasy not only as a corrective balm to injury but a world-making claim to the right of life, imagination, and joyful expression, an especially critical response to our current moment.

Featured on a grid of video monitors in FWM’s front window on Arch Street in Center City, the accompanying soundtrack for Revival! is projected onto the street (during museum hours), also inviting viewers to scan a QR code to access the Revival! stream from their personal devices anytime, anywhere.   The installation is meant to be iterative, with evolving content to be featured over the course of its run through early June 2021.

Additional support for Revival! is provided by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Paideia Program at the University of Pennsylvania.