Let's Build Something Together:
The Strands
Deja Jones
Bio
Deja Milany was born in Rockdale, GA but has had the pleasure of being raised in Detroit. As a child she was able to explore the world of black hairstyling with her mother. It wasn’t long before she found love and peace in fiber/ needle crafting arts seeing it as a form of therapy, stillness & peace. After high school she studied Fiber/Crafts at the College for Creative Studies receiving her BFA in 2018 & completing her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2022. While her work has always been centered in documenting her journey to mental freedom with her mind map series. During her time at Cranbrook she discovered she had been living life as neurodivergent & began exploring the intersections of multi-sensory spaces, identity, joy, for Black women/femmes like herself, her goal is to bring this work into space that is easily accessible to them. While attending Cranbrook she has had the opportunity to show at The Trout Museum, Library Street Collective, Ann Arbor Art Center, Norwest Gallery, Cranbrook Museum, Art of Bas Blue via the Wasserman Group & has had the opportunity to have a solo show with Interloper Galleries. Milany’s work was referenced & published in the book “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake” by Tiya Miles in 2021. After her time at Cranbrook she has shown at the Womxn House Residency program & participated in the ACRE artist residency. As she continues to create work for her private art practice she is a craftswoman & educator throughout her community currently working as a fiber/crafts teacher at University Prep Academy of Art & Design.
Project Statement
Let’s build something together: The Strands is a multi-sensory interactive installation inspired by the beauty, care and intention it takes to live, dream and create the world we need and want to exist in. Each bead has been created to mimic all of the small yet impactful moments we experience in life, one could even say each has a spirit or personality of its own just like each of us sharing this world. Living is a collaborative effort that can not exist in solitude. My hope is that you can help contribute to the piece by selecting a bead that feels the most like what you’d like to contribute to the world we are building together & placing it on a steel strand; the piece (& I) need you in order to be complete. Place the bead on the strand then capture the bead via photo, voice recording or written description tell us about your contribution to the strand and why you were drawn to it. Feel free to feel, shake, listen and sit with several before you decide. Then submit your description via the QR Code.
Visual Description
4 Shelves are mounted on the wall. Each shelf holds 12 ceramic vessels (beads). Flanking the shelves are 4 vertical metal bars (strands) that audience members can place beads onto. Each bead is uniquely textured and consists of a variety of colors like pinks, oranges, yellows, purples and blues. Some beads have been created to mimic noise makers that audience members can shake and some beads are adorned with varying lengths of iridescent glass seed beads.