Binya/Comya at HD Expo 2025

Wolf-Gor­don is proud to present Binya/​Comya, a wall­cov­er­ing exhi­bi­tion pre­mier­ing at HD Expo 2025 in Las Vegas, Neva­da, from May 6 through May 8. This exhi­bi­tion focus­es on exquis­ite art­works, includ­ing sweet­grass bas­kets, cro­cheted cast nets, iron­work, and paint­ings, cre­at­ed by Gul­lah Geechee artists and craftspeople.

Gul­lah Geechee cul­ture has a locus in the South Car­oli­na low coun­try, and the Gul­lah Geechee Cul­tur­al Her­itage Cor­ri­dor stretch­es from Wilm­ing­ton, North Car­oli­na, to Jack­sonville, Flori­da. Gul­lah peo­ple are the descen­dants of enslaved peo­ple forcibly removed from West Africa from the 1500s through the 1800s. The ances­tors of the Gul­lah, who were from coun­tries now known as Sene­gal, Ghana, Nige­ria, Sier­ra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire, were not tar­get­ed for this vio­lence ran­dom­ly; slave traders sought to exploit their supe­ri­or cul­tur­al knowl­edge in areas such as the cul­ti­va­tion of rice, cot­ton, and indi­go fish­ing, iron­work, and tex­tile pro­duc­tion, among oth­ers. These skills were iden­ti­fied by slave traders as essen­tial to the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of the south­east­ern US coastal economy.

For over 300 years, African trades­peo­ple and their descen­dants were forced to put their ances­tral skill sets to work in the ser­vice of white enslavers. For the har­vest of rice, which became known as ​“Carolina’s Gold”, sweet­grass bas­kets were sewn. Cro­cheted cast nets were essen­tial for fish­ing and shrimp­ing. African iron­work­ers and their descen­dants were forced to par­tic­i­pate in black­smithing and con­struc­tion. Fol­low­ing eman­ci­pa­tion, the Gul­lah, who remained on rice and indi­go plan­ta­tions (often com­pelled to par­tic­i­pate in the exploita­tive, extrac­tive sys­tem of share­crop­ping), were able to open­ly prac­tice and safe­guard their ancient knowl­edge, trades, and spir­i­tu­al prac­tices. The geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed Low-Coun­try Sea islands where they lived allowed close-knit Gul­lah com­mu­ni­ties to pre­serve their heritage.

The artists in this exhi­bi­tion — painter Amiri Far­ris; bas­ket sew­ers Lynette You­son, Angela Stoneworth, and Daryl Stoneworth; and the late cast net mak­er Joseph Legree Jr. — uti­lize the imagery and craft of their ances­tors to bring to life their con­tem­po­rary artis­tic visions. In Binya/​Comya, var­i­ous rich shades of indi­go illu­mi­nate scenes of Gul­lah life, the stun­ning tex­tures and designs of woven bas­kets become hyp­not­ic pat­terns, and the ethe­re­al move­ment and exquis­ite craft of cast nets and iron­work are brought to the fore.

Binya/​Comya is the third in Wolf-Gordon’s series of exhi­bi­tions that engage with art and design with­in their social con­texts. It was pre­ced­ed by HI>AI and El Muro. It will be on view at HD Expo at Booth [Booth Num­ber]. Read the full exhi­bi­tion cat­a­logue at the link below.