Whole-house performance art is a tribute to Black girls and women

by Jared Michael Lowe

EXCERPT //

“She loves to perform and play dress-up. She’s really an entertainer at heart,” says Vashti DuBois, founder and executive director of the Colored Girls Museum.

The “she” DuBois refers to is her home, a 135-year-old, three-story twin Victorian house nestled in the heart of Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood. DuBois describes it as a “memoir museum to extraordinary ordinary colored girls,” and an homage to Black girls and women.

“It was to create a space where I could honor and celebrate the ordinary lives, experiences, and stories of other colored girls like me—and that meant honoring my ordinary life,” says DuBois. And much like any good performer, “she,” the museum—which DuBois always addresses with feminine pronouns—shape shifts throughout its seven-room structure. “She’s the embodiment of who we are as Black girls and women—a giver, caretaker, lover, friend, truth-teller, laborer, a healer—all of these beautiful identities,” DuBois adds. Inside DuBois’ home, artifacts of “ordinary colored girls” abound. Brightly hued quilts hang on walls and lie folded across chairs and bookshelves, and clothing scraps—buttons, a piece of a nightgown—hang in one room along with a washboard. Scents of lavender and tobacco sift throughout and often change to whatever mood “she” the house feels. Aged photographs and oil paintings of Black girls and women adorn the spacious rooms while bags of black-eyed peas and brown-faced dolls conjure up grandma’s cooking and childhood memories. All is intentional and carefully managed by DuBois, along with Curator Michael Clemmons and Associate Director Ian Friday. Neither relegated to the past nor bound by the present, the museum serves as a sanctuary—a haven that takes visitors on a communal journey of joy, loss, healing, and remembrance.

The refuge and sanctuary of DuBois’ home allows visitors to let their guard down and their emotions to take charge. They submit themselves to the feelings that the installations summon, and DuBois notes that some have cried, others have shrieked in laughter, and others still have knelt and prayed. “It’s this experience that makes visiting her universal—we’re all human, we all feel. I often say, if you don’t know the colored girls’ story, you don’t know anyone’s stories.” //

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Destination // Celebration and Sanctuary at the Colored Girls Museum