Image: Sable Elyse Smith, Coloring Book 33, 2019, screen-printing ink and oil stick on paper, 60 × 50 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Banal Presents marks the compelling final chapter in the ground- breaking three-part exhibition Colored People Time, which has unfolded over the course of the past year through the presentation of two preceding chapters, Mundane Futures and Quotidian Pasts. Building on the ideas and discoveries explored in previous chapters,Banal Presents features new and recent work by Sable Elyse Smith and Cameron Rowland and a newly commissioned work by Carolyn Lazard that offers a profound exploration into how the history of chattel slavery and colonialism in America exists in and impacts our present moment. Lazard’s commission explores the history of medical experimentation at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia, funded by the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950s through the 1970s, and draws relationships between the prison, the hospital, the university, and the museum in the form of a multi-media work. The commission extends the artist’s ongoing investigation into issues around consent within the context of black life.

Colored People Time is organized by ICA Assistant Curator Meg Onli and will be accompanied by a catalog published in the form of a reader. A robust program and a collaboration with the quarterly literary magazine Callaloo will also support the exhibition.