Yodea Marquel Williams | Corporeal

“Corporeal” investigates the body as an archive of memory, ritual, and survival. Through garments, objects, and material traces, the project examines how histories become embedded in matter and how repair, wear, and transformation leave evidence of endurance.

Drawing on ritual practice, histories of social exclusion, and cultural resilience, the research examines how systems of purity have shaped bodies, behaviors, and material culture. In response, “Corporeal” approaches scars, residues, and imperfections as evidence of survival rather than failure, reclaiming trace as a form of resistance against erasure. Over the course of the residency, the project will develop through archival inquiry, material experimentation, and site-responsive investigation. Working with textiles, found materials, natural dyes, waxes, and sculptural forms, the work will explore how objects can preserve memory, carry ritual significance, and hold traces of labor and personal history.

Structured through archive, ritual, and oscillation, “Corporeal” considers how material culture can make visible what is often overlooked, suppressed, or forgotten and how traces of survival continue to inhabit the body long after an event has passed.