February 21, 2026
1 - 2 pm
Free
Ashon Crawley is Professor of Religious Studies and African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. He is author of Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (Fordham University Press), an investigation of aesthetics and performance as modes of collective, social imagination; and The Lonely Letters (Duke University Press), an epistolary exploration of the interrelation of Blackness, mysticism, quantum mechanics and love. His third book, From Infinite World: the Sound of the Hammond Organ and the Tragedy of AIDS in the Black Church (WW Norton), will be published later this year.
From Infinite World: the Sound of the Hammond Organ and the Tragedy of AIDS in the Black Church examines the impact of the AIDS crisis for Black social life, entering the conversation by considering musicians, singers and choir directors that labored for Black churches, and explores the ways gender, sex, and sexuality remain unthought and untheorized, but are no less real practices of the living and the dead, themes that align with the concepts present in the TILT exhibition Homeboyz In Innerspace. Join David Evan McDowell, Lendl Tellington, and Rashid Zakat in a lively conversation with Crawley as they delve deeper into their individual artistic practices and engage the audience in how the aforementioned concepts influence our perceptions of the secular and spiritual realms.
In addition to being a professor and prolific author, Crawley is a multidisciplinary artist working in the visual and the sonic. He has received fellowships at Yaddo, MacDowell, New City Arts Initiative, and Learning It Together, and has widely exhibited his artwork, most notably at Second Street Gallery and Welcome Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia, Bridge Projects and the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, California, and on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Crawley’s writing and approach to art practices is about what he calls otherwise possibility.
Photo credit: HOMEGOING – a sonic memorial to the AIDS crisis that honors fallen Black queer musicians and spirituality located on the south grounds of the Washington Monument. Photo by Steve Weinik.
Homeboyz in Innerspace — December 11, 2025 – March 21, 2026
