Issue 30 | "You can’t compromise my joy." | Photo Essay by Featured Artist Kori Price
"For this exhibition, I created a Black woman’s headspace to demonstrate how this tension between joy and terror can exist internally..."
Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you’d like your work to be considered for future issues.
Issue 30’s Featured Artist Kori Price is a multi-disciplinary artist and photographer based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Originally from Culpeper, Kori has been proud to call Central Virginia home for most of her life and is passionate about telling the stories of her community. Kori’s solo exhibition, “You can’t compromise my joy.” appeared at New City Arts Initiative’s Welcome Gallery in Charlottesville, VA.
“For this exhibition, I created a Black woman’s headspace to demonstrate how this tension between joy and terror can exist internally. The gallery windows are obscured by fabrics woven with different colored and textured Black hair to stand as a barrier between what is external to the Black woman and what is internal. Once inside, the viewer must continually choose to experience joy as they navigate between portraits of Black women from our community doing something that brings them joy and a representation of the terror that Black women face.
This tension and turbulence between joy and terror affect our body, soul, and mind.”
“There are certain events and stories that hit home harder than others and Breonna Taylor’s murder was that for me. A few months after I moved into my home I had a peaceful encounter with police officers knocking on my door in the middle of the night looking for the previous homeowner. I didn’t think much of that interaction until years later in 2020 when Breonna Taylor was murdered in her own home in the middle of the night because police officers were looking for people who weren’t there. To translate this reminder into something physical, I painted a piece of sheetrock the same color as my bedroom and shot it thirty-two times to represent the number of bullets police officers fired into Breonna Taylor’s home.”
“You can’t compromise my joy.” by Featured Artist Kori Price
“As a Black person, it feels as if our every action is under examination and compared to “perfection” (read as: white beauty, social, class, and economical standards). We are told that we can exist if we conform. Though, even if we do conform, the color of our skin is still a target for racism on a scale including suburban Karens who feel threatened by our existence; school officials and workplaces that say our natural hair is not appropriate; white men with guns “protecting” their neighborhoods from Black people walking home or out for a run; and law enforcement that kneels on us until we can’t breathe or charges into our homes in the middle of the night and kills us in our groggy daze. We face this reality every single day. That at any time, without warning we or our loved ones could be the next face spray painted on the side of a building or sketched with sharpie on cardboard signs. Our name could be a part of protest chants or a hashtag under a blank black square on Instagram. That even if we are murdered, we may not receive the justice that we deserve. Yet, amidst this terror, this threat to our existence, we live. We choose to experience joy…”
Read and view the full photo essay “You can’t compromise my joy.” on KHÔRA.
Kori Price is a multi-disciplinary artist and photographer based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Originally from Culpeper, Kori has been proud to call Central Virginia home for most of her life and is passionate about telling the stories of her community. Kori holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech and seeks to maintain a balance between her technical and creative interests with her work. She is a founding member of the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective and currently serves as their president. Kori has been a resident artist at New City Arts Initiative as well as a writer in-residence at McGuffey Arts Center. Her work has been exhibited at New City Arts Initiative, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, Studio IX, McGuffey Arts Center, and Second Street Gallery.
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With galactic gratitude,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad
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Artists and Writers
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If you love what you’re seeing, please subscribe, share, tweet, retweet, and post, and KHÔRA will be back soon.