Curating and Project Direction

Of Black Wombhood (OBW) is an independently produced oral history project created by curator and cultural producer Tanya Latortue. Featuring auditory and visual renderings of personal narratives, OBW explores the interiority of Black womb-bearing people through stories about culture, health, sexuality, identity, and the politicization of the Black body from the past to the present.

OBW’s inquiry into wombhood beyond the periphery of pregnancy and birthing invites us to acknowledge the stories of Black womb-bearers with cultural sensitivity and social responsiveness, and to contemplate: What role does the womb play in defining one’s personal identity within the Black body? What does Black wombhood represent in the modern era? How can we reconcile the history of an ancestor—whose womb/body was misappropriated—within the memory of a physical space?

From March through June 2025, OBW debuted as a multimedia art exhibition across two Philadelphia-based art galleries—TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image and Da Vinci Art Alliance—and now continues its journey at Thomas Jefferson University’s Helix Gallery. Original work from each of the previous exhibitions is highlighted in this iteration, which features stories with health-centered perspectives.

Visual artist Kara Mshinda rendered each story into a portrait of its narrator through her fusion of photography and collage. Sound artist JL Simonson blended interview excerpts with ambient sound and audible frequency to adapt the narratives into an experimental soundscape. To learn more about the narrators and their stories, please visit the OBW project website at theblackwombhoodproject.com.

Curator Tanya Latortue (she/her) is an operations professional and emerging independent cultural producer whose practice investigates how various socio-political infrastructures can impact core physiology and humanistic psychology within the Black body. She holds a Master of Public Health in Sociomedical Science from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Penn State University. She is the project’s creator and lead producer.

Artist Kara Mshinda (she/her) is a visual anthropologist who creates photo-based artworks about identity, memory, and embodiment in community contexts. Mshinda is an alumna of Temple University (‘07) and is best known for using collage, abstract drawing, collaborative portraiture, and alternative photo processes to document urban landscapes, candid play, social encounters, and the material culture of daily life. Her recent projects include Meta, a collection of abstract ink drawings on photos, canvas, and paper and All Hands Hold, an instant film photography project and visual study about identity expression and hand performance. Mshinda is the Fellowship Director at Da Vinci Art Alliance and is a Principal Collaborator of GrioXArts, a studio-centered art space at Cherry Street Pier that focuses on building community via process-based art education.

Artist JL Simonson (they/them) is an artist who explores transgressive temporalities, acoustic archaeology, and listening in the diaspora. They combine interoceptive recordings, archival media, extrasensory frequencies, and interactive electronics in addition to piano and guitar to create multimedia installations and electroacoustic soundscapes. Drawing from practices in oral history and historiographical cartography, Simonson has collaborated with listeners on streets and sidewalks around the world. Their work has been generously supported by Art Basel Miami, On Air Fest, Roulette Intermedium, the Estate of Pauline Oliveros, the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, and the Great Lakes Association of Sound Studies among others.