‘It was very challenging’: exhibition memorialising Black trans deaths

Between 2021 and 2025, Black nonbinary artist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson visited 91 locations across 15 states to perform ceremonies at sites where a trans, gender nonconforming or intersex person had died. The solo show These Waking Glories at the California African American Museum brings together photographs and objects from those actions.

“It was very challenging in ways that I’m continuing to mend from and rest with,” they said. “It is not ‘inexpensive’ on my body and spirit. That cost I knew would be there.” One central work is a series of 90 pedestals, each topped with a jar containing an essence Whitson made from materials gathered at a site and a velvet stole bearing the name of the person being remembered; two pedestals bear no name for the unknown.

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