Finding Soft Ground

Finding Soft Ground, Fazlalizadeh’s first exhibition at Art + Practice (A+P), considers the conditions, precarity, and imaginative determination of safety for Black women. Utilizing the three galleries of A+P, Fazlalizadeh transforms each space into distinct installations examining the street, the home, and the natural world in relation to terror and refuge. The works in Finding Soft Ground—which include wheat-pasted prints, oil paintings, drawings, a single-channel film, and site-specific materials—are rooted in Fazlalizadeh’s Black feminist theory. Finding Soft Ground is presented in tandem with Speaking To Falling Seeds, the artist’s installation of monumental portraits of Black Los Angeles women wheat pasted onto the atrium walls of the California African American Museum (CAAM). Both exhibitions draw upon photographs and conversations that took place in the spring of 2023 while Fazlalizadeh was living in Los Angeles. The portraits ask how safety is presumed, built, and felt for the city’s Black residents. This exhibition is curated by Essence Harden, Visual Arts Curator, CAAM, and is co-presented by CAAM and A+P as part of CAAM at A+P, a five-year collaboration.