We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls)
Jeannette Ehlers began working on the series We’re Magic. We’re Real in 2020. The entire series, which includes photographs, installations, and live performances, makes use of hair as an important identity marker across communities of African descent.
Originally commissioned by Danish designer Mads Nørgaard and first performed in November 2021, the durational performance We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) featured Ehlers accompanied by supporting performers of African ancestry. The performers were connected by long cornrows to the facade of a colonial building, as if the braids were growing out of it. The hair sometimes blended in with the leaves of the climbers covering the structure, creating a poetic metaphor for the relationship between culture and nature, body and landscape, history and the present. Since then, the piece has been presented in other venues and international art events such as Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen (2022) and MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain in Montreal (2023).
We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) at PAMM
For PAMM’s presentation of We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls), the local Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora community throughout Miami was invited to collaborate on the work by participating in a collective intergenerational braiding circle. The community-oriented event took place on September 21, 2024, in the East Portico of the Museum, where participants had the opportunity to help create the six 85-foot-long braids that were then used during the live performance event held a few days later.
During the live presentation of We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) on September 26, 2024, Jeannette Ehlers and supporting performers A’Keitha Carey and Brianna Pierre-Georges were connected to PAMM’s third-floor terrace by long cornrows. The 85-foot-long braids blended in with the hanging gardens and the architecture as the performers, who faced Biscayne Bay, moved back and forth slowly but insistently.
A sound piece of the roar of the Atlantic played in the background, resonating powerfully with the windy, stormy weather outside. Grief and strength were present in equal measure in this meditative performance, evoking ancestral lineages and the enduring impact of the Middle Passage.
Ehlers’s We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) was presented at PAMM as part of Beyond Representation, a research project and performance series that investigates a broad range of performance and performative practices by artists from the Caribbean or of Caribbean descent working in the region or its diasporas.
Beyond Representationon PAMMTV
The online component of Beyond Representation highlights the abundant contributions made by Caribbean creators to performance art. Featuring video-performance works by Jeannette Ehlers, Tirzo Martha, Carlos Martiel, Viveca Vázquez, and Merián Soto, this PAMMTV exhibition exposes and refuses oppressive colonial ideologies while creating multiple narratives of freedom, healing, solidarity, and joy.
Accompanying Ehlers’s on-site live event, the artist’s video performance Whip It Good reenacts one of the most brutal methods of punishment inflicted upon enslaved people: whipping. In employing the same method on a white canvas, Ehlers creates a simple yet tension-filled act of rebellion against the colonial past.
Ehlers’s Whip It Good dialogues visually and conceptually with her live performance We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls), as the whip eventually transforms from a tool of torture into a braid of hair symbolizing healing and connectedness. Visit pamm.tv for videos and more information.
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