The BIRTHRIGHT Series 2019

My Pops left the capsule of his body in 2017 after a bout with pneumonia and a relapse of a rare lung cancer. He was in the hospital for seven days where he continued to fight and for most of the stay, remained calm, humorous and loving, as always. Although he was unable to talk, due to the tubes feeding his body oxygen and sustenance, he was able to communicate to my sisters and me through writing.This was a blessing for him and us.

Finally, he felt himself slipping. Unable to get enough oxygen into the one good lung that in a matter of days became ravaged by the fucking cancer, that came back with a vengeance, on the back of the pneumonia. In pain and feeling suffocated he wrote the final note to us on Wednesday to up the narcotics so that he could rest his mind.We did. We continued to talk, massage him, play music for him and let grandchildren, family and friends talk to him via the phones. Finally, on the seventh day, after listening to an Alice Coltrane piece with ironically enough harps, a piano recording of my then 5 yr old son, and finally listening to my mother, his ex-wife and friend since they were 16, Pops transcended.

These works are made of the materials he left.The audio tapes; some with recordings of him talking about history, culture, politics or our blackness in these United States. Others, music, recordings of shows he liked, spiritual talks etc. It is with the latter that I constructed the first 13 works. These works, made of what he gave us became the cornerstone of pieces, constructed of the information, and ideas he held close, that represented power, pleasure, and pain in his life. In my opinion he left these great pieces of matter to construct some sort of truth leading to balance for us, built and restructured through my hands for the benefit of us, for the benefit of humanity.

Thank you Pops for your gifts.

I humbly present The Birthright Series.

Aaron Parrish Simms