WaPo: David Allen Harris and Lyric Prince Harris
Three Sisters
July 8–July 30, 2023

Over the course of the Wa PaPo project, photographer David Allen Harris and interdisciplinary artist Lyric Prince experimented with set design and patterns, along with other elements that can symbolize different ideas, feelings, and modes of expression that tell a story. For the Three Sisters series, they show the set and the storyboard on how a new sort of Earth was created from the old:

The Earth of old had passed away
And all around was death and decay
The eldest, Usir, looked around with a sigh
And from the twinkle of tears in her eyes
Clear streams of water and air thus flowed
And another sort of ground started to grow
The two other spirits watched on with glee
As the new sort of Earth came slowly to be
And while not perfect, it was still true
“The Earth, when broken
Can be easier made anew.”

About the artists:

David Allen Harris and Lyric Prince Harris have been working together in artistic partnership since 2016. They are interested in telling stories that reflect their ancestry in Africa as well as their established roots in America. Also, they are interested in exploring the spell of the sensuous and how body and color can combine to create stories with or without words.

Throughout their careers, they have worked with expanding the limits of both storytelling and the artistic mediums of photography and installation art. Their project, Wa PaPo, has so far received a solo show in Oakland, CA, in 2022, as well as being accepted in the DC Arts Bank collection in 2021. Individually, they have shown at the Hampton Museum of Fine Art, Susquehanna Art Museum, Maryland Federation of the Arts, African American Museum of Philadelphia, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

They currently live and work in Washington, DC, and Berkeley, CA.