CAAM presents a powerful solo exhibition and performance series honouring Black trans life, loss, and celestial memory.
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson. Courtesy of the California African American Museum (CAAM).
The California African American Museum (CAAM) has opened ‘These Walking Glories’, a major solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson. Curated by Cameron Shaw, Executive Director and Chief Curator at CAAM, the exhibition forms part of Whitson’s expansive Illumination Catalogue, an ongoing ceremony series and living archive that mourns Black trans losses while celebrating Black trans alive-ness, resilience, and brilliance.
A Ceremony Series Rooted in Ritual and Remembrance
Since 2022, Whitson has been in residence at CAAM as part of a pilot program supporting research-driven practices by Black California artists. During this period, they have travelled to ninety sites across fourteen states where Black transgender people were murdered or died by suicide between 2018 and the present. At each location, Whitson led and documented a site-specific ritual shaped in dialogue with local transgender communities. These intimate actions, grounded in ceremony, performance, and collective witness, form the heart of the Illumination Catalogue.
Through this profound work, Whitson poses a series of poetic questions: How does the cosmos grieve us? and How were our exquisite births recorded in the sky? The project uses ritual and cosmology to build a spiritual archive, one that listens beyond the material world and refuses erasure.
Stars, Archives, and the Cosmology of Transcestors
As part of this process, Whitson developed a collective action protocol that records the moon phase and notable astronomical phenomena on each transcestor’s birthdate and date of passing. Their practice moves between land and sky, between the specificity of place and the expansiveness of cosmic time. It honours each life with both earthly and celestial attention.
At CAAM, ‘These Walking Glories’ includes ritual objects and materials gathered during Whitson’s travels, alongside photographs, sound archives, and essences created in honour of every transcestor. The exhibition invites visitors into an unfolding spiritual space, one where grief, reverence, and presence coexist.
An Exhibition Activated by Performance
In its opening week, CAAM adjusted exhibition hours to accommodate twice-daily performances led by Whitson. These activations are integral to the work, extending the exhibition beyond visual presentation into embodied, communal experience. The performances continue the artist’s long-standing engagement with choreography, ritual practice, and Black trans world-making.
Curatorial Vision and Institutional Support
‘Sage Ni’Ja Whitson: These Walking Glories’ is curated by Cameron Shaw, whose leadership frames the exhibition within CAAM’s ongoing commitment to supporting artists whose practices interrogate identity, memory, belonging, and liberation.
The residency and exhibition were made possible by the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the University of California, Riverside.
‘Sage Ni’Ja Whitson: These Walking Glories’ runs at the California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles, from 18 November 2025 to 5 April 2026. For more information, visit caamuseum.org.
