February 19 – May 30, 2026 Alisha B Wormsley: The Temple of Our Survival - special indoor film screening and panel talk on Thursday, March 19.

Light Work’s Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition Alisha B Wormsley: The Temple of Our Survival  at their architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade..

The Temple of Our Survival is new video work commissioned by Light Work for projection at UVP exploring what survival means and looks like through a series of interviews conducted by the artist with local care workers, land stewards, and cultural workers in her nomadic film set and project space.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Wormsley will be present for a special indoor film screening and panel talk on Thursday, March 19.

About the Work

The Temple of Our Survival
2026

While in-residence in Syracuse, Wormsley worked with Sankofa Reproductive Health and Healing Center, setting up her eponymous traveling film set and workshop space “The Temple of Our Survival” for the month of July. A work of art in its own right, the Temple is a massive tent draped in quilts made of vibrant traditional fabrics and sewn by the artist in designs invoking her own ancestral histories of migration and search for refuge. 

In Wormsley’s own words, “This set is mobile not just for convenience but as a signifier of our relationship to land and landscape. That relationship is migrant. Ancestrally adapting to weather, plant-life, water and resources in every part of this country and beyond. The resilience is of the spirit.”

The Temple of Our Survival filmset has travelled to a total of eight sites around the country. At each of these, the artist held workshops using herbs grown in her grandmother’s garden and conducted interviews with local care workers, land stewards, and cultural workers, each of whom shared their own stories of and strategies for survival. 

This piece was created through a Light Work UVP Residential Commissionand would not have been possible without the collaboration of Sankofa Reproductive Health and Healing Center.

Assata and Asteir Bey of Doula and Director of Sankofa Reproductive Health and Healing Center.

Film and Set by Alisha B Wormsley

Producers
Sibyls Shrine
Jessica Gaynelle Moss
Tsedaye Makonnen

Camera and 2nd Camera
Alisha B Wormsley
Ricardo Robinson
Brett Wormsley

Location Sound
Ricardo Robinson

Sound design
Ricardo Robinson
Alisha Wormsley

Syracuse Cast
Asa Rogers
Asteir Bey
Assata Bey
Katrina Delee
Sequoia Kemp
Shakera Kemp
Miesha Shih
Raniqueka Vereen
Cheeki Williams
Ammale Yousuf

Pittsburgh Cast
Betty Lane
Bekezela Mguni
Naomi Chambers
Alisha Wormsley

Fort Lauderdale Cast
Jessica Gaynelle Moss

St. Louis Cast
Dail Chambers
Tiara Burtin
Alexe Harlem

Oakland Cast
amara t smith
Courtney Desiree Morris

https://www.lightwork.org/archive/alisha-b-wormsley-the-temple-of-our-survival/