The Church Fan

In 2023, I dedicated the entire Futurism Fashion Experience to the movement for reparations. Not loosely. Not aesthetically. Directly and intentionally, with people in the room actively doing the work — SF Black Wall Street, ARCC Bay Area, CJEC — organizations engaged with both the San Francisco and California Reparations Task Forces. This was alignment, not performance.

I knew I couldn’t let people walk away from that evening holding only a memory. I wanted them to leave holding something that carried the weight of what we had discussed together.

So I commissioned AR Technologist Damien McDuffie of Black Terminus AR to build my first augmented reality piece from an image in my Black Space Series. The work is titled 5 Forms. And it lived inside a church fan — the event program.

I need you to understand why I chose a church fan.

Because I do not believe in separating high concept from cultural familiarity. A church fan is something we all recognize. Something we hold. Something we take home. Something that has lived in Black sanctuaries and community halls for generations — passed between hands, used to cool ourselves during long meetings and longer sermons, kept in pockets and purses long after the event is over. It is one of the most intimate objects in Black communal life.

But this one did something different.

You scan it. You download the app. You point your camera. And suddenly you are not just holding a fan — you are witnessing Kamilah Moore, Chair of the California Reparations Task Force, explaining the five forms of reparations as defined by international law.

Let me name them clearly, because this is the foundation of everything:

Restitution — restoring people to what was taken. Liberty. Property. Place.

Compensation — financial and material repair for harm, loss, and stolen opportunity.

Rehabilitation — medical, psychological, legal, and social support for recovery.

Satisfaction — public truth-telling. Apologies. Memorials. Acknowledgment.

Guarantees of Non-Repetition — structural change so that it never happens again.

That is what people were holding in their hands. Not theory. Framework. The actual legal and moral architecture of what repair looks like — delivered through a cultural object rooted in the living traditions of our community.

That moment changed my practice permanently. Because I saw very clearly what AR makes possible: it allows me to place truth exactly where it was denied, without asking anyone’s permission.