(upbeat music) (people chattering) - [Announcer] Welcome everyone to Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.

(audience clapping) - So I'm from Detroit and how we say hello in Detroit is what up doe?

And it basically is hello, how you doing?

Or whatever.

So we gonna try it again.

What up doe?

- [Audience] What up?

- All right, bet.

Now I know y'all here with me.

So yes, my name is Tiff Massey.

I'm an interdisciplinary artist.

I am from Seven Mile Illinois, born and raised in Detroit.

And so what I'm going to do is show quite a bit of works that I've been exploring, investigating, material research, different topics.

And it's been a long time since I've actually shared this much with an audience and I want to get through as much as I can so you guys can ask me questions.

So let's go, y'all ready?

(people cheering) What up doe?

(people laughing) So what you probably don't know is that I have a bachelor's of science and I went to Eastern Michigan University, which is right on the outside.

I wanted to be a veterinarian, but the whole time I was pursuing art.

And then when I got to Eastern, I took jewelry, which I had jewelry in high school and you know to get that art credit and stuff, y'all know what this is, right?

We trying to graduate, we trying to do what we need to do to get to the next level, whatever.

And I took jewelry for non-majors and I'm like, I love this, you know, but how do I do it when mom is like, yo, you gonna be a doctor or whatever, stay on this track, what we doing?

So I went through and got the degree and after I graduated I mixed chemicals for Washington all community college.

So anybody who was taking a chemistry course, they would be searching for the knowns that I created in the lab.

So I would do that work really, really fast so I can hurry up and get to the metalsmithing studio.

And so therefore the passion is already existed.

And so once I graduated and then I was asking about what are the programs, you know, where can I study?

I'm interested in jewelry, I love Jacob the jeweler.

I don't know if anybody's familiar with hip hop, but he's basically the jewelry designer that basically did everybody's jewelry.

Kanye, Diddy, I know we ain't saying his name right now, but y'all know what I'm saying.

Like that whole platinum resurgence in the jewelry becoming larger than life, I was very inspired but I wasn't using that same materiality.

It was basically about the materiality, the weight, the scale of things.

But then also too like I got this biology degree, so how can we tie the two?

So that led me to lichen.

So this is work that I was making after I left Eastern Michigan and I was at Wayne State at the time pursuing a master's program in art.

And I was trying to basically figure out how to connect, you know, my biology background to this adornment arena.

And so I was creating these rings that look like lichen, which are just minuscule, you know, organisms that are basically covering everything outside.

You probably can't see them right now 'cause it's cold.

But you know, I was thinking about what if you know, these objects had a symbiotic relationship with us.

And so just thinking about what these wearable objects could look like on the hand.

And so the materiality of this is they're cast silver with gold leaf and a material that you are all familiar with called crayons.

And so that is the color that is on the surface of these rings.

And so the premise was to make these things, these objects feel like they were growing out of my hand.

So not really getting the feedback that I needed at Wayne State.

I wasn't satisfied at that time.

Cranbrook had their alums from their master's program teaching in the inner city.

And so I got well versed with one of the alum and I told her that I'm not really getting the feedback that I need.

So all y'all, if y'all not getting what y'all need, go somewhere else.

Don't waste y'all time.

So I had an introduction with Iris Eichenberg and once I got accepted, you know, me trying to stretch and talk about symbiotic relationships with the body and stuff outta jewelry, like that's not real, you know?

And so I started to like tap into what my lived experience was.

And so when I got to Cranbrook, it was basically about me investigating materiality.

I knew what I wanted to talk about, but how do you talk about it?

You know, I have a full command on how to manipulate material, but what do you do?

So of course I have a biology background, I don't have an art background.

So the first things that I did, I shaved the side of my head.

I wanted to look like a artist, you know?

And then everybody else is just looking regular.

So I'm like damn, I'm doing too much.

So I started to tap into my lived experience.

And so y'all, I'm 42 years old, forgive me, I do not remember all of the bodies of work, the titles.

So I called it Untitled Dicks.

And this is just a little slight work of the early works that I did when I was at Cranbrook.

And so here we go.

So yeah, so I was doing a little interracial dating, you know, and you know like guys, y'all, when y'all dating black women, y'all should probably not talk about the size of your dicks.

Like don't count yourself out already, right?

Like, you know what I'm saying?

So, okay, so then I decided to weave a penis outta wood, you know, and the length is so it could wrap around your neck three times, I don't know.

But yeah, that's where I went with it and so probably had a lot more humor in my work back then.

And so, you know, work with me.

So like yo guy tried to holler at me and he wake up and now he's equipped 'cause he told me he wasn't before, right?

And so like okay, well what is that interaction like?

You know, and yes, I did crit this, I did have a critique with all my colleagues and yes we talked about it and then what happens when I have it, you know?

So yeah, you know, had to show y'all a little funny stuff.

So this is actually the work that I graduated with at Cranbrook, it's called, they don't wanna sing my song, they wanna sing my song but they don't wanna live it.

And it's basically about the black experience, right?

You know, like everybody likes the music, they like the fool but hell no, don't nobody wanna be black, right?

And so that's what I wanted to talk about, you know, the appropriation of blackness.

I was using a lot of fashion photography as you know, a way of communicating these things.

And so these are the objects that I made at the time still utilizing fashion photography as a mode to get the products and the ideas across.

So I was at Cranbrook heavily only thinking about the body.

There was one moment where I made a large scale sculpture, which you will see, it is also exhibited at the DIA currently.

And that was when I started to investigate scale.

So these are some of the larger works from this time period.

And so this is like 2009 to 2011.

Detroit, obviously you already know I put on for my city.

So I was curated in an exhibition, it was called trashing.

You know, it's like Detroit, everybody talks about Detroit.

Detroit has been used as a pejorative for years, you know?

And so the goal of the exhibition was for you to find trash and then basically turn them into pieces.

And so I took that shit serious 'cause I ain't never thought Detroit was a pejorative or was trash.

It was always a gem to me.

So the objects that I found, books, I placed the found object as the focal point in these wearable objects, these are all necklaces.

So in this piece there's like caution tape before this broom bristles that I found, oops, sorry.

Glass from one of my favorite buildings that has been abandoned for a long time and some children books.

So, hair.

So this is the first time that I started to like investigate hair and a dormant and the conversations that we are constantly speaking, the labor was actually involved.

And so interestingly enough, like I've been teaching off and on since I was in grad school and one of the after school summer camps that I was teaching at, I was teaching them the coil method of how to make baskets outta fiber.

And interestingly enough, the same technique is how you can create locks, full locks, same techniques that you see here.

And you know, I just started to think about, you know, the hierarchy of objects and then what do we consider valuable and not valuable.

And a lot of these traditional hairstyles mean that you're a royalty.

So this is the start of the series where I was just making individual objects, looking at different tribes, back to how everyone is adorning themselves, moving through the diaspora to contemporary times.

And so I went back to that work in like 2018 and added more pieces.

And so this is how the work exists today.

Facet.

So because I have this jewelry background, You know, I wasn't necessarily satisfied with scale.

And so this piece in particular, it was a bracelet.

And so that's usually how I work, which is not how you basically are introduced to other artists that basically come to jewelry.

They usually come to jewelry as a medium after the fact that they've made it or whatever.

But I'm a jeweler and I've moved to sculpture.

And so this originally was a bracelet that I made for myself.

And I was curious about how every time I laid it down it was a different orientation and so I wanted to increase the scale and so I increased the scale and all my colleagues just respected it as sculpture when I thought they would interact with it.

And so I asked my colleagues, can you help me move it to the critique space?

And I filmed the procession, which to me seems like the Passion of the Christ.

'cause I ain't doing nothing and I got everybody else working.

So you know, that was the start of me filming, you know, how the works are being moved.

And this piece is really about teamwork.

Nobody can move differently outside of the other person, you have to, you know, move in unison.

And so like if there's ever like a work retreat or everybody acting up and you'll know if everybody on the same team, y'all probably should come and move this piece 'cause y'all will all have to be aligned for this thing to actually move.

And I wasn't satisfied with the wooden scale.

It was slightly smaller than what is actually on display at the DIA.

But this is that same piece that is currently on view.

Vanity.

So I mean, I don't know how y'all feel, but if y'all get a piece of new jewelry or a new outfit or you got a new haircut, you feeling fly.

So I'm like, all right, let's make a exhibition about how you feel, you know?

And so I think a lot of times when we talk about the history of adornment and creating jewelry and the history of craft, we always talk about the object, but we never talk about how people feel.

And so I started to explore that with this exhibition.

And then this was like 2014.

And so all of these faceted bricks outta steel were basically the mirrors.

And I had, as you can see in this piece, like little vanities and you would have to walk up to this table and you would see that there was a necklace.

And so this is the first time also that I am having the audience participate and put on the necklaces.

And once, you know, having a photographer come to the opening and the closing just to see how people feel, like people adjust their posture, they walk differently, he feeling his soul what we doing.

So like that's the whole point, you know?

And it's like nobody talks about that.

Like we make the pretty objects and especially if it's some jewelers or metal smiths in the house, we worried about the class, the earrings, the technicality of it, the front, the back.

But we not talking about our capturing like the smiles on these people face, the swag.

Look that's swaggy, what we doing, she ready.

And this is basically a gallery view of what that looked like.

And here are all of the necklaces that were on display during that time.

Welcome to Detroit, what up though?

So I was asked to participate in a triennial in France, Lila 3000.

And they asked Detroit to be a participant.

And so Detroit was actually representing the nation and I don't understand how it wasn't no press on this, you know, it's like every other country.

It was like Brazil, Korea.

And so what they were tying in is that you know, we had an abandoned train station and so they were talking about the connective tissue between you know, the abandonment of industry and how we're the same.

And I'm like, we ain't the same 'cause this train station looks great and the train station was the setting for the exhibition.

And so I'm gonna show you some of the images that I added to that installation.

And so these are from me taking my jewelry for a walk and these are all the people that I basically encountered and this is basically Detroit as hell.

You know, do y'all see this dog in a stroller and stuff, like I'm just mad that I didn't have enough jewelry for everybody in the picture, you know?

But it is just really the essence, we here is love.

Y'all will see this come up later.

So yeah, I mean at the time, I mean gentrification, Detroit, Detroit, Detroit moved to Detroit, what we doing?

And so like I'm questioning even my own participation at this time, but like you asked me to participate to represent in France.

And so I'm looking at the lineup of the other artists and I know the other artists don't look like me.

So what we had to do, we had to paint all the walls black just because my black ass ain't there, at least something is, you know, I mean we the blackest city in the nation Detroit, like we had top stats.

So like I'm always gonna talk about that because whatever, you know, my experience growing up it was very, very beautiful and outside of what, you know, the pejorative stories or the stories that were were told.

And so if I was the only black artist that I saw representing Detroit, it needed to basically talk about the whole story that was basically happening at the time.

So I have, this was the first time that I thought about an entire space and doing an installation.

And so I have the windows have faceless mirrors to where people are just viewing into the space.

There's my stuff on guard, there's some of the jewelry, there was not people to watch the work.

So I could not have it available for people to be able to wear.

Probably wouldn't get back to me.

But yeah, this was the first time that I painted a mural as well and said I will never do that again.

Shout out to the muralists who are using their whole body to you know, make this work in adorned spaces in other capacities.

I was asked to be in another triennial in France, Saint-Étienne.

And this work was just really about like the before and after.

You know, it's like depending on who you talk to in Detroit, depending on the age group, they would talk about, oh my god, Detroit was so great until, until Detroit became black.

Oh my bad, so what I did was I made a wallpaper, I went to Belle Isle, which is everybody's family member.

Everybody basically has family reunions on our island basically equivalent to Central Park.

And these are images of the weeds that I took.

And then I basically juxtapose these old images of Detroit like as far as I can go.

And so like, do y'all see the police up here?

Do y'all see this, police ain't working back then, they ain't doing nothing, you know, I mean this is Belle Isle, you know, I think there's other images of the bridge being built and things like that.

And so I had these mirrors that have like this chain link fence motif on it.

And so they were all installed on the white wall so then the pejorative can be viewed on the white wall essentially.

And so this image is when the National Guard came to Detroit when we had our race rebellion.

And I just found out, 'cause my family is so big that one of my cousins was actually one of the three people who was murdered at the start of the rebellion for the National Guard to basically come to Detroit.

A studio view of the chain link fence motif, quilt codes.

And I gotta try to be conscious at this time 'cause I'm trying to get through it.

So this is 2014 the same time when I was doing Vanity.

And so I was at Red Bull, I had a residency there and so, you know, because I was working with a gallery, they were in instructing me to do something different because they wasn't trying to have me sell the same work over here and me sell it on my own while they got work over here that they trying to sell, if y'all feel me.

So then I made a new body of work and so I really thought that I was gonna be doing a lot of fiber work.

I go back and forth between seeing the hand present and not just because of the level of perfectionism that my pursuit of metalsmithing has basically instilled in myself.

Everything has to look damn near perfect.

So this is the body of work that I chose to present for that residency period, which is called quilt co represent.

And this was the first piece in the series that basically is a culmination of designs from Adinkra quilts, kente, Kuba and then also three dimensional objects that I was creating in my studio to flatten into 2D Quilt code two noir, then Facebook called, yeah they called Meta now.

And so this was my first large commission, had a studio visit with Facebook.

They were building a headquarters in Detroit, Birmingham.

So they were doing a studio visit basically to, you know, adorn the walls like they do at their headquarters.

So every building at Facebook and Menlo Park, Instagram or whatever, anything outside, they make sure that they have curators, they have a art program.

And I was commissioned to create one of my quilts.

They said it did not belong in Birmingham, it needed to come to Menlo Park where Frank Garis was building the new headquarters.

So I love commissions because it basically allows me to think outside of what I would normally do because the budgets are a lot bigger.

And so then I can make things that I didn't think that I could do or would do.

And so this is, it's on two walls, forgive me for not showing a video, but I use a lot of reflective material and the works that I make so there is no separation of the viewer and the work.

And this was basically the start of that series.

Then Kresge called and said what up dog, where's ours?

And so I'm like, bet, I got you.

And so they were building out a new Detroit headquarters and they wanted basically sliding pocket doors for privacy for their conferences.

So it's two sided, two different designs.

Then Ford called, let's go, who else calling, you know, I'm just like who else want one?

You know, and so Snøhetta was the architect.

This piece is in Dearborn located in their FXC building where they basically launch new cars and new design on their campus.

Spring, I'm just showing this, I actually won a competition for the Knight Foundation.

Right now we're working on, well I'm working on how to get it funded, but I just wanted to leave this in the presentation.

So you can see basically how I work, a lot of the times the objects are very much so wearable and then I'm not satisfied with the scale.

And so then we like, yo, what we doing, how can we adorn multiple people at once?

And that's why the scales have been getting larger to architectural scale.

And this was supposed to be permanently installed at the trial age right.

We gonna see who won it for real.

But right now there is basically still a concept.

So Jewelry Box.

So all the rings that I used to wear, every day I would wear these rings out.

At one point would just sell them off of my body or whatever just because of the popularity of like, oh I want that, well I want that.

And then I stopped and started to really just think about what is it, what is the demand?

Do people really want this jewelry or do they really want the experience?

And so in 2018 I had a solo exhibition at the Library Street Collective and this is when I first introduced the Jewelry Box.

And this is highly in reference to how I got introduced to jewelry.

It's like my dad used to go get custom jewelry made, we had a family jeweler, I used to go to these jewelry stores and you know, the scales of things when you're little are much larger.

And so basically I wanted to recreate this moment here.

And so I basically have, they look like chess pieces essentially in this installation.

And so all the gold pieces are basically me making these rings where you can see the hand, there's not this level of perfection opposed to the steel pieces where it's just perfectly crafted and 39 reasons why I'm not playing.

That's the name of the brass necklace in the back and yeah, I'm not playing, now it's 42 reasons why I ain't playing.

But yeah, these are actually objects that I made for myself and now they're large.

This is your mama's earring, somebody mama.

But like moving back to, you know that feeling of like when you are adorned, I really started to think about what that concept was.

And so I won a Susan Beach Award if my jewelers know what that is, some coins, you know, to, you know, put on an exhibition or if you wanted to print a catalog and things like that.

But I really wanted to push this idea of, you know, what is it like in trying to capture, you know that feeling of when you are feeling yourself because you are adorned or you look good and things like this.

And so I created this very expensive piece and lemme show you how it works.

So basically the idea of it was, well I couldn't really execute it because of COVID, right?

So we can't really share things.

And so I wanted it to be a jewelry piece in the middle of a room.

You pick it up and then you're on the wall.

So you're the most important object.

It's not necessarily about the piece that I created.

And so being that I couldn't have that one object, I could at least create the setting and.

(upbeat music) Okay, I should probably say that I've basically curated the music with several of the hottest DJs or whatever for this box.

And so basically it's a music video in real time.

So you enter it, you are the work essentially.

So that's why all the green screen and things like that.

So the music is playing.

And so in of course everybody's feeling they self, everybody wanna see they self.

So here's like a few of those images.

(upbeat music) - [Speaker] This my video, this my video.

- [Narrator] She freestyling y'all in my video.

- [Speaker] This my video, they don't even know that it's my video.

- So that was the woman in the white over here saying that.

So she's actually in the space, she's not recorded on the track.

She was really feeling herself.

(upbeat music) (people shouting) (upbeat music) Fun.

(upbeat music) (audience clapping) So music, I mean if I'm inspired by hip hop, the culture, only makes sense that'll probably make some, you know, you gotta talk your shit some type of way, right?

(music whirring) So I made this track, it's called Detroit is Black and it was based on a writing what was on happening in Detroit 2014.

(upbeat music) I see what you're doing.

It is kind of hard not to have pride for Detroit before it was hit, the new fad or now even taboo.

There has been an influx of people moving to the city when things are happening, change is happening regardless if we are ready or not.

Whether we are privy to the secret meetings that are manifesting in order to enhance, change, clean, revitalize, gentrified, help, enhance, change.

Clean, revitalize.

You mean gentrify, gentrify.

(upbeat music) ♪ Black, black, black ♪ ♪ Detroit is black ♪ ♪ Black, black, black ♪ ♪ Detroit is black ♪ Y'all not slick.

There's more to Detroit than Midtown and Corktown, Detroit, where the children need free lights to help guide their way to and from school.

Safe neighborhoods where the next door neighbor is in a mile away because the rest of the block is abandoned or a trap house, food that isn't provided by the local corner store, gas station, Coney or McDonald's.

A city where the schools aren't and won't ever be on the same playing field as the suburban school districts.

Y'all ain't slick, y'all ain't shit.

The lack of funding, which then in turn totally eliminates all form of expressions and culture.

No recreation centers or performing and visual arts.

Just another tactic to bridge the gap, huh?

(upbeat music) ♪ Black, black, black ♪ ♪ Detroit is black ♪ ♪ Black, black, black ♪ ♪ Detroit is black ♪ But what's gonna happen when all those hipsters have hipster babies and those hipster babies need resources, schools, food, recreation, et cetera.

I wonder will they send their children to the local school since we're all about buying local these days, maybe this will result in better teachers or teaching institutions where the people in charge won't ever become complacent.

I know I just went on a rant but know this, I am tired of people complaining about my city.

If you don't like it, do something about it.

Really, if you are about that life, I'm tired of Detroit being described as if it's free lunch or reduced down to a simple hot and ready.

People live here, people live here, people live here.

But we've seen this behavior before.

The face of Detroit is not white, it's black.

♪ Black, black, black ♪ ♪ Detroit is black ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Black, black, black ♪ ♪ Detroit is black ♪ Community.

So community is huge for me.

I had really no idea I guess until my studies at Cranbrook and I was the only black woman on campus outside of custodial and people who are a part of the staff.

And that really, I'm like, how is that even possible when black as Detroit is right here, you know?

But institutions are designed a certain way intentionally.

And that basically left such a strong impression that I started to think about not only being vested but invested, especially in Detroit.

So one day when I was in my feelings, like all of us artists are at one point or another feeling real down on myself.

I got a notification about this, I don't know this woman, but she saw some of the things that I was doing when I was teaching in the inner city with my students.

And she decided to teach her children in Chicago a similar curriculum.

And I instantly got my ass up out my feelings and this work to do.

So I always reference this photo so I can keep going.

I'm sure that I will be blowing this up to poster size in my studio once I get settled with myself because I keep growing exponentially.

So with that whole moment in 2017 acknowledging, you know the popularity of Detroit, gentrification, I was really worried about me having a space.

And so I was able to secure a space for myself and I'm like, bet, I don't ever have to leave.

It's in my neighborhood where I grew up eight blocks away from my childhood home.

And then once I started to come to the lot to try to take care of the grounds, I would see a lot of children walking around and I'm like damn, that was me.

You know, what can I actually do to actually give back?

And so I knew that I should not get, you know, settled in that space 'cause I couldn't share space.

But this is my face when I got into the building to actually see what I did.

And you could see it's like, oh shit, this development game is no joke.

It's not easy.

And I do spend quite a bit of time thinking about land and how to be a steward of the land and actually create space for other people to feel safe and comfortable and wanting to create.

So which led me to do my own festival called What Up Doe Fest.

And you know, a lot of times I don't know what the hell I'm doing, I'm not even gonna front y'all.

You know, I got the idea, I believe in it.

And so then I talk to my friends, if they believe in it, then bet let's go.

How much is it gonna cost?

Okay, we'll figure that shit out.

So I talked to a friend, he was like, yeah bet, let's go.

I'm like, okay, we only got four weeks though.

And he's like, let's go.

So we plan this four weeks and I'm gonna show a video and it's gonna happen like really, really fast.

But I basically had 600 people ascend onto this property that was all housed on my grounds.

And so it's just like I had seven DJs play, we did yoga in the morning, we had praise music in the morning and this was like a Sunday so it was like day parties, you know, I'm getting older, I can't be doing like all that how y'all young people and stuff doing.

Like can we turn up in the day and go to bed?

You know, like sleep is supporting y'all.

It's just really is.

But I was really shocked at the people who like actually pulled up on me like, you know what I'm saying?

Like the love is really real and it is heavily felt contemporarily because people are definitely letting me know, it's good.

But it was definitely a beautiful experience.

I was able to tap in into the culinary artist and so everybody was able to like make money.

I curated my first exhibition that day and you know, people sold art for the first time.

I've had friends that are collecting art for the first time.

And so it was a beautiful experience and I plan on, you know, doing this type of work again.

So Seven Mile Illinois, Seven Mile Illinois, that's the name of the exhibition at the DIA is definitely the intersection where I'm from.

If you talk to any native Detroiters, we're not talking about the name of the neighborhood.

We usually give you East side, west side what intersections, whatever you from.

And the majority of a lot of people from Detroit, they have a lot of stories based on this phrase alone.

Whether they grew up there, live there while they were going through school and adolescence.

But then also too because of the changeover of neighborhoods.

Like these neighborhoods used to be like majority Jewish before the race rebellion.

And so a lot of my friends, they tell me about, oh yes, like that building you own, I know about it.

Oh that bowling alley, we used to bowl there.

Yes, we went to Mumford.

And so I started to actually get interested into the collective stories.

We'll hear about that later.

But once I was approached by Katie about, you know, doing an exhibition at the DIA, I'm like, hell yeah, let's go right?

You know, of course right.

You know, and then they're like, okay, can you respond to our permanent collection?

And there was definitely a couple works that I wanted to respond to.

And one was definitely the Donald Judd because I remember when I was a kid that that was the piece that I always wanted to climb.

(person laughing) And of course I'm like yeah, you know, I mean visceral experiences like you never know why you remember things.

Sometimes it smells, sometimes it's the materiality, sometimes it be the people that you're with or whatever.

Like you never know.

But this is the promo for the exhibition and I really just wanted to highlight my mom.

I'm wearing her fur, which you cannot see, but furs are huge in Detroit and Detroit legacy, usually that's part of your legacy.

They get passed down.

So this is my mom's fur, I wore it.

And then my dad who passed away in 2005, I have his jewelry and so I'm wearing his jewelry in the photo.

And so basically if it wasn't them, it wouldn't be no me, Seven Mile, here's some other photos of it.

And this is me wearing my dad's fur, highly adorn with his necklace, with his initials LM.

You know, we gotta have a art Lil Kim photo, you know what we doing?

So this is, you know, some behind the scenes photos of like me prepping for the exhibition.

And so I really had a hard time, you know, coming to the color of the quilt code because it looks so beautiful in the raw.

(upbeat music) ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ What up doe ♪ ♪ I just wanna make that ♪ contemporary women ♪ ♪ That make a different track ♪ ♪ Simply because women ♪ from Detroit are amazing ♪ ♪ Where you from ♪ ♪ I'm from ♪ ♪ Where you from ♪ ♪ I'm from ♪ ♪ Where you from ♪ ♪ I'm from ♪ so if y'all ain't pulled up, y'all gotta pull up.

And so like the Cadillac was very important.

That's the car that I grew up in.

It was just really about the opulence like sauce.

Like my parents, you know, if I didn't have my hair done, I didn't have my outfit together, I couldn't go, you know, it's just, you'd be at home.

So one of the things that was very, very important to me was before anybody saw this exhibition, that my mom saw it.

So my mom had open heart surgery during the time that I was prepping for the DIA.

So I was scared shitless.

But of course like my mom would be like, get your ass in there, do what you need to do like a mama would, you know.

So it was just very important to me that she was and my sister were the first people to see the exhibition before everybody did.

And so I wanted her to see, look at my mama, okay y'all, like this is where I get it from.

Just in case y'all didn't know, you know, it comes from a place and it's her.

And so.

(person laughing) I also wanted to show like, you know, we're all inspired by different people and this is my first jewelry teacher that I had when I was in high school and I totally lost my whole shit when I saw her because I'm like, yo, it's you, it's you are the reason outside of my mama and my daddy of course that I am here.

You know, and it was very, you know, a touching moment and a moment that I'll never forget.

'Cause I think she was just only at the high school for like a brief moment and she was like, yo, Tiff, I never forgot about you.

So I always do this pose every time I'm repping my own work.

I don't know, it's a thing, I tried to find more photos of it because I've been doing this pose for a very long time.

But I just wanted y'all to see like this is basically what I intended for the work, for people to be able to walk through the piece, for you all to be adorned at the same time, might not happen at the DIA for you to experience that, but once I get these objects outside, I will invite you all over so you can experience.

So this is that 15,000 pound necklace that Katie was talking about earlier.

And so during the prep of the exhibition really, I mean it was a lot of holdup just 'cause we thought we was gonna break the floor.

And I'm like, whatever publicity is publicity, you know, well no we want the DIA, the floor to hold.

So yeah, so this is one of the pieces that are based off of my necklace designs that are called Cubed.

I don't know if I was really supposed to go through this and I don't know how we are on Q&A time, but you know, if you haven't seen it, I don't wanna spoil it.

But even if I'm showing you the images, the scale is different.

Like it's just like seeing them, Mona Lisa.

Then you go see it and you see the thing like this big and shit and they, you think it's like huge.

So this is Baby Bling.

And so like, I'm not sure if a lot of people are familiar, but these are hair ties.

And so basically what I'm doing is covering like just adornment in general, like how we adorn ourselves.

And so I'm going from like adolescence to adulthood to when you get, you know, protective styles, you know, to basically protect your own hair.

This is weave, and I love that there Connectalon.

Had to say it again.

So basically these are portraits and so a lot of these hairstyles I've worn, a lot of people have worn.

And so like the blank canvases are basically for other people to turn around and add to the installation.

But you know, a lot of times I was asking myself like, who is missing, you know, from being a little kid and having barrettes and beads or whatever into like adulthood or where you grown and you going to the club or whatever, you going to the beach.

You know, I wanted to try to capture all of that.

But then also, you know, to talk about the labor and you know what, we actually go through, black women, you know, I used to sit for like eight to 10 hours every two months or something for a style, a look, I mean the adornment and you know, it's just really just in the blood really, diaspora.

And these are the rings that I showed you earlier that were basically on display at Library Street.

And then I remember way back when the Goody barrettes, y'all remember the Goody barrettes?

I mean this is like cross-cultural, generational things, you know, you remember being a kid, you know, somebody loved you and wanted to adorn you this way.

And so it's really, you know, about evoking these, you know, emotional experiences, talking about your ancestors, talking about this love, talking about being cared for.

And so in that second gallery, that's where a lot of people actually break down.

I mean I lost my whole shit showing my mama and I'm like damn, I never cried in my own exhibition.

And so I guess that's probably why everybody else is because I've felt it too.

But yeah, 39 reasons why I'm not playing, you know, it's just a stunting moment, you know, you gotta step outside and show, you know what Kendrick say, sometimes you gotta step outside.

(person laughing) And so I haven't actually been able to process what this exhibition is like.

So if y'all wanna ask, I can't tell y'all, you know, but every day I am getting messages, images of people and their families.

But like to me like this is really what it's about.

She lived, her hair extensions, the exhibition, like do you see this girl?

Like this is her everyday life.

This is not basically normal for any institutions to be able to show on this level of magnitude, you know what I'm saying?

Like what we go through on a regular ass basis.

And it'd be like the little things, you know.

And so my favorite, what we doing?

Yo like take ownership, you thought they would've made it, you know what I'm saying?

And so like, this is basically what it's about.

Like the community is taking ownership.

They see they self, they talk about it, like we don't even need docents no more because they telling people what the work is about.

Oh you don't know, I'll tell you what it is.

And so I'm like, this is the first time that I've ever experienced it.

And so sometimes I like to sneak in, but then they'll be like, Tiff Massey is here and then my whole spot gets blown.

But I mean it is just what we doing, I'm just like, ah.

So I do a lot of screenshots or whatever because I think it's also important to basically document how we are receiving information as well.

And so this exhibit is I can't wait to bring my daughters, thanks sis, 'cause this is what our next generations need to see themselves represented in art.

Your true inspiration to young black women.

So I don't know how, I'm not crying all day every day, but you know, I try to keep it, what up doe?

Just had to tell you the exhibit was exquisite, made me proud to have that experience being black woman from Detroit, there's so much of that, you know, I feel seen, you know, I don't know how many people can actually say they feel seen, you know?

And so I would have to say it is very successful outside of the 150,000 people saying that they wanna pull up, oh, I got a red light, I gotta stop.

So I just wanna leave with this.

It's been so much love.

And so like Katie said, you know, we're doing some After Dark Series, March 7th, please put it down.

This was the last experience that we had for the After Dark Series.

And I was shocked myself, all the people that.

- [Speaker 2] Yo, Seven Mile in Illinois After Dark.

It was a whole vibe last night at the Detroit Institute of Arts, now there was so much love in the building, it felt like the whole city popped out.

Even the kids go, go, go.

Now I've never seen a DIA that's packed more than.

- [Narrator] Damn.

(audience clapping) (people chattering)