Holding Space: Void Spa as a Site of Care and Resistance

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

— Audre Lorde

Historically, African-American people believed that the construction of a homeplace, however fragile and tenuous (the slave hut, the wooden shack), had a radical political dimension…Black women resisted by making homes where all Black people could strive to be subjects, not objects, where we could be affirmed in our minds and hearts despite poverty, hardship, and deprivation, where we could restore to ourselves the dignity denied us on the outside in the public world.

This task of making a homeplace was not simply a matter of Black women providing service; it was about the construction of a safe place where Black people could affirm one another and by so doing heal many of the wounds inflicted by racist domination. We could not learn to love or respect ourselves in the culture of white supremacy, on the outside; it was there on the inside, in that "homeplace," most often created and kept by Black women, that we had the opportunity to grow and develop, to nurture our spirits.

— bell hooks

Everybody needs care. Everybody needs space. We have endured, within just the past three years, a global pandemic and the loss of nearly seven million lives; the state-sanctioned lynching of folks who could all too easily be our mothers and daughters, sons and brothers; children in cages at the borders; insurrection; open attacks on basic human and gender rights; book banning; legal barriers to and the erasure of education in history and critical race theory; recession; mass displacement due to war, climate crisis, and gentrification; lockdowns and social distance; rises in deaths by suicide; extended isolation and aloneness. Black and brown and queer people have been disproportionately targeted and staggeringly more affected. We’ve had to live through these end-of-days conditions, witnessing and processing our trauma, hurt, shock, rage, and grief largely from our housing rentals and device screens. As we emerge from our small four-walled and online worlds, it is no wonder that we are all seeking shared space and shared healing. It is clear we all need care, comfort, and community if we are going to make it. Under these conditions, the installation and activation of Void Spa becomes both a destination and an invitation.

A. Sef (they/them)—a somatic educator, access worker, artist, and co-founder of Autosomatica, a relational bodywork practice prioritizing services for BIPOC, trans and gender nonconforming, disabled, queer, migrant and working-class individuals—and Akeema-Zane (she/her)—an artist and researcher working in the mediums of literature, film performance and sound—connect and combine their interdisciplinary talents to generate this unorthodox and generous offering. Void Spa is a call-and-response with their interconnected Afro-Caribbean intuitive and Black Midwestern migratory lineages that mobilizes the ancient practice of geomancy, also known as “the divination of earth” or “the science of the sand.”

Working in the radical and communal traditions of homemaking, Afrofuturist worldbuilding practices, and acts of Black intention and ingenuity, “making a way out of no way,” A. Sef and Akeema-Zane have asked us Black and Brown folk to gather together in the void, in the darkness and the everyday, where we can collectively build and experience new modes of holding space and healing. Void Spa is the making of a new kind of “homeplace,” the art of activation which welcomes, centers, and holds those most in need of care, community, release, and healing right now.

THE TREATMENTS

There are several ways to experience Void Spa. One can book hour-long individual/private, couples, or group visits for Void Spa’s fully sensory installation treatments: Rubble Grid, Noise Bath, and Trash Burial. The visits are guided by the artists and conclude with conversation about your experience and their installation. Each spa visit and treatment are customized and adjusted to your needs, safety and comfort levels, based on questions beforehand and an open communication model facilitated by the artists. There are also offerings of Drop-In Service and Silent Sits at Sunset, where the artists open up the Void Spa space for community events and collective experiences, which include group activities like improvisational games, rest and silent contemplation.

RUBBLE GRID

When you enter Void Spa, you are greeted by the first treatment, Rubble Grid. It is part sculpture, part structural display, part urban altar–a makeshift table of window glass and foam blocks holding several small rocks A. Sef has carefully collected debris from streets and construction sites along the walk from their home in Brooklyn to Recess. The pieces of brick, marble, cement, concrete, and limestone take on the buildings that are characteristically Brooklyn: brick red, earthy brown, cool stone, coal black. Here, the artists invite you to sit down and slow down, to handle each rock, feel and play; arrange them in a formation or display that feels natural, or interesting to you.

After being welcomed by the artists and removing my shoes, I spend ten minutes at the Rubble Grid treatment. I am left alone with the stones in muted light, surrounded by darkish walls and quiet. At first, I am surprised by my hesitation and judgment. The rocks feel rough and they are not beautiful or mysterious, like my own personal collection of amethyst, selenite, and tourmaline geodes. Unlike those found in the mystical seaside shops and botanicas of my travels, this collection of detritus does not provide suggestive names on neatly printed cards or make promises of helping me “be more authentic, walk towards my purpose, deflect bad energies from a previous life, break generational curses and repair mother wounds.” No, these rocks are unceremonious and persistent. These rocks are Brooklyn. As I hold and handle each one, I am reminded of the brownstone in Bedstuy that I’ve called home for five years now. These rocks that once made up the great brownstones and buildings sheltered descendants of the Great Migration and subsequent waves, who moved and escaped to New York like me, in search of a bigger dream. These rocks housed generations of Black and Brown families, kitchens and restaurants, businesses and spaces where people lived and worked, slept and loved, fed themselves and each other, believed and fought for something better. The rubble insists that I bring my own energy, make my own meaning and healing. This rubble holds history. The grid holds what remains.

NOISE BATH

I rise from the Rubble Grid and am greeted by Akeema-Zane, who warmly escorts me to my next treatment, the Noise Bath. From the outside, the Noise Bath appears as a black box. The standalone structure—8’ foot tall x 12’ foot long x 12’ foot wide—contains a large, hard bed that I settle onto and put on the nearby oversized headphones. As the surface beneath me begins to rumble and jolt my body, sounds of brown noise and the city fill my headphones. There are no distinguishable human or animal voices that I can recognize but rather sounds of life, activity and movement—sounds of something surrounding me. Sounds that have become part of my city living: knowing which neighbor is returning home from work by the gentle (or booming) way they handle the wrought-iron door, my refrigerator and ceiling fan, loose pages of my many books blowing in the cool air, my radiator clanking on in winter, the late-night bus that passes every half hour, all the whirling of machines that let me know everything is still working, that life is still alright. I imagine someone is maybe cooking, dancing, cleaning, weeping, learning, working, bathing, fighting, loving, resting above, below or beside in the walls that surround me.

I don’t know what comes next. I am here in the void. I am here in the noise and darkness. I am left with my own feelings. In the darkness, I do not feel pain, I do not feel unsafe or afraid, but I also do not feel comfortable. I try to adjust and focus my eyes, but there is only darkness and my body being moved and shaken. I try to think of a positive affirmation. Instead, I have several flashbacks, remembering all of the other wellness centers, spas and treatments that I have been to. I think of the therapist I fired, acupuncture from two Native Chinese practitioners, cupping, countless Korean spas chock full with other naked women, cold pools, herbal baths, salt and jade rooms, and saunas of every size and style, traditional hammams in Istanbul, past life tarot readings, journaling, breathwork, meditation apps, even fish pedicures where hundreds of live fish consumed my dead skin. What were all the ways that I have tried to care for and comfort myself? Had any of it worked?

I laid in the darkness of the Noise Bath treatment wondering how long it had been and if at the end of the twenty minutes I would feel any better. All at once, both the noise and movement came to a stop, and I was left there in darkness and now stillness. Akeema-Zane had offered me an alternate way out of the Noise Bath, telling me that I would have to search for the exit, so I rose and patted along the wall for minutes until I finally found a small, low opening in the corner. I had to trust and humble myself and, using my animal instinct, I came down onto the ground on all fours, crawling through the dark and narrow space (approximately 8’ foot long x 3’ foot wide x 3’ foot tall) where I reached the exit and my final treatment.

TRASH BURIAL

I come crawling out of the void to the artists’ grinning and welcoming faces. My final treatment, Trash Burial, had begun. This open space at the back of the installation serves as both a reception and rest room. In contrast to the Noise Bath, it is a well-lit area furnished with plush gray carpet, several cushiony body pillows, and a gathering of foam building blocks. The light casts a watery effect, achieved by two track lights shining onto the mylar which covers the back windows. Some visitors before me have built a small fort—like one I’ve experienced from childhood. There, my body meets the velvety flooring, and I am surrounded by softness. I prop my side against one of the body pillows, digging my feet into the carpet, and chat with the artists. They encourage me to play. They encourage me to share. My mind is swirling with many previous experiences of “the spa” and I process and share my past attempts at trying to comfort and heal myself.

I feel better than when I entered the space, but I do not have the words to express the “why” or “how” of my feelings of contentment and safety. I have not experienced beauty or comfort or light in the ways that I have experienced traditional spas. However, I did not have to pre-prepare my Black tattooed body with grooming, scrubbing and shaving, or consider what undergarments “appropriate” like I had in those bright white environments. I did not have to steel myself for stares, assumptions and micro- and macro-aggressions about what “kind” of Black woman I am and “what I do” to deserve my right to receive indulgence, comfort, care, and rest. And there is beauty, comfort, and light to be found in the experience of just showing up as myself, a tired middle-aged Black woman, receiving without having to be, do, or give anything in advance or return. During the treatments, I have had to have faith in my own intuition and feeling, instead of seeking outside for superficial and external symbols, like the waffle robe, cucumber water, and clay masks to signify my comfort, healing, and betterment. I leave with little to photograph, post or share of the Void Spa art installation and treatments. I have to rely on the momentary and memory—only carrying away with me the feeling of being in darkness and being with myself. I go home, climb in bed, and enter the deepest sleep I’ve had in weeks.

CLOSING CEREMONY

In an interview with The Creative Independent, Saidiya Hartman is quoted saying, “care is an anecdote to violence” and further expanded: “Often the way people think of care is as an incredibly privatized thing. I mean, caring for ourselves, partly, is the way we destroy this world, and we make another. We help each other inhabit what is an otherwise uninhabitable and brutal social context.”

On the last day of the Void Spa exhibition, A. Sef and Akeema-Zane invite the community to a closing ceremony. They have transformed the installation space into a public and collective activation of the spa and its treatments. All three spaces have been illuminated and the motorized bed has been removed and placed in full view, next to the Trash Burial reception area. The Noise Bath now houses electronic and musical equipment and seating along the walls for an event planned later in the evening. The space is filled with every expression of Black, brown, queer, creative, and beautiful people; the tone is spirited and celebratory. Other artists, beloveds, friends, and community–distant, dear, and new have reunited and gathered at the Void Spa for a night full of performance and events.

Guests are greeted by the Pleasure Ceremony Café pop-up by cy x, which offers freshly steeped herbal teas grounded in their “eco-erotic practice,” and to be selected based on your intentions for the evening. Due to several placements in earth signs, I select “Warm & Rooted” and choose from several small tears of paper that suggest an identity and assignment to try on for the night. My paper says: “The Inquisitive Child – You are a child now and have a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world. Move with a sense of wonder, interacting with the artifacts and asking questions about their significance. Hands are the vehicle through which a child often takes in information about the world around them.” I accept this challenge and playfully ask others there about their selections, meeting “Symbolic Sculptors” and “Astral Mentors.”

At the top of the hour, we all gather into the Noise Bath and Trash Burial areas for the scheduled performance. Akeema-Zane, and brandon king, who have adorned themselves in all white (a color often worn in non-Western cultures as a symbol of cleansing, mourning, and respect to the dead, as a way of honoring loss and loss lives on the still living body), seat themselves on the floor of the Noise Bath black box behind the makeshift DJ/musical equipment area. We all choose a spot and settle, and, for an hour, we are gathered together in body, sound, and experience as music, voices, and sounds swell from the speakers, activating the space. Akeema-Zane and king take turns mixing, shifting, and improvising a pre-recorded musical demo by Akeema-Zane which features 14 tracks of original composition and samples an audio collage of “The Children of the Poor, Sonnet No. 2” by Gwendolyn Brooks and “The System of Dante’s Hell" by Amiri Baraka. Simultaneously, the motorized bed has been switched on and folks alternate laying, placing parts or wholes of our bodies on it, observing, and often laughing at each other’s unpredictable reactions to its starts and jerks. People effortlessly weave between the now-public treatments and various areas. The sound surrounds us as we witness, care for, and hold space for one another, and the sound takes us to what bell hooks describes as "the small private reality where Black [and brown] folk can renew their spirits and recover themselves," what Saidiya Hartman elsewhere references as “another [world we make].”

THE TAKEAWAYS

Care is big business. A now four trillion-dollar industry—the colonization, commercialization, and commodification of wellness has made the language and practices of soft life, palo santo, boundaries, spiritual retreats, and quiet quitting part of all our daily lives. Void Spa offers and represents a movement away from Western-appropriated wellness businesses and self-help regimes that promote the bright white(ness) of the spa and toxic individualism, and an industry that has historically and systemically denied basic care and comfort to marginalized communities. Void Spa is instead built upon communal and reciprocal models of engaging directly with artists and practitioners in open communication. A. Sef and Akeema-Zane further call upon their own Black and brown identities, histories, and practices in collective, direct resistance to the capitalistic ownership/possession care model, and the European colonial standard of what is “beautiful, comfortable, sacred.” Theirs is an alternative to paying-on-demand for a prescriptive and predictable “healing” or outcome delivered in a tidy, terry cloth package. Void Spa disrupts and refuses the capitalist notion that care and comfort have any price tag and the illusion or delusion that they can simply be purchased or achieved through consumption.

A. Sef and Akeema-Zane have been able to imagine and build a refuge and a container to hold and release some of the collective Black and brown grief experienced over the past few years—a glorious space to receive, witness and share collective care and comfort. The concept of creating and holding place and space is in our blood. Indigenous Black and brown cultures have long held innate relationships and interdependence with space, land, and each other. We have built motherlands, southernlands, swamplands, crawlspaces, underground railroads, maroonlands, dirtlands, deserts, islands, junglelands, stopovers, ghost towns, wetlands, wastelands, freewaters, otherlands, liminal spaces, the stars and heavens above. Our mothers and sisters carried them in their tongues and gentle beds of hair, even as we have lived and moved across them, even when we have had to leave them behind and dream and build new ones.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennett, Elizabeth Z. "Medieval Geomancy." Princeton Online, 1998, https://www.princeton.edu/~ezb/geomancy/geostep.html

Hartman, Saidiya. "On working with archives." Interview by Thora Siemsen. The Creative Independent, February 3, 2021, https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/saidiya-hartman-on-working-with-archives/

hooks, bell. "Homeplace: A Site of Resistance." Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. South End Press, 1990, pp. 41-49.

Jacobs, Harriet Ann. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Thayer & Eldridge, 1861.

Lorde, Audre. A Burst of Light. Firebrand Books, 1988.

McGroarty, Beth. "Wellness Now a $4.2 Trillion Global Industry – with 12.8% Growth from 2015-2017." Global Wellness Institute, October 6, 2018, https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/wellness-now-a-4-2-trillion-global-industry/