Into the Pluriverse
By Lacey Argus
Sovern, a nonprofit art gallery and healing justice center in Los Angeles, sticks out like a vibrant castle in the midst of the harsh greys of urban Los Angeles. The bright shades of pink and elaborate designs that adorn its concrete walls draw you in, as if calling you to explore the treasures within. The gallery's current showing is Into the Pluriverse, running from June 25 through October 8, 2026.
Into the Pluriverse is a group exhibition inspired by the Zapatista term "pluriverse," commonly understood as the multitude of realities present in a single moment. Artists Nia Lee, April Bey, and Jessica Taylor Bellamy explore how Afro-indigenous histories and cultures shape, create, and challenge our concept of truth and perception.
The exhibit opens with five works by Nia Lee entitled Saltbone, combining various mediums to explore the historical intensive labor that many enslaved Africans performed in salt mines. Each piece combines historical references and materials to traverse through stories and time, creating a space to grieve, feel ancestral connections, and expand our understanding of the potential worlds held within moments.
Lee's first piece is a textile sewn from recovered salt bags sourced from locations where enslaved Africans performed forced labor. Each bag is embroidered with messages Lee spiritually channeled from those who were a part of these devastating events. One of these messages reads: "SALT BE MAGNET LOOKING FOR ITSELF IN THE SWEAT ON MY BROW MY PITS MY GROIN MY BACK."
Next to this tapestry sits Salt Spirit, a sculpture inspired by Orisha Olokun, an enigmatic deity commonly known within the Black diaspora for their deep connections and power drawn from the deepest recesses of the ocean. Designed to wear during tasting performances, this piece is a powerful tool to embody and connect to ancestral stories, traditions, and rituals. Made from fabric, salt, cowrie shells, brass bells, and mirrors, the piece is a collection of natural elements and the stories they hold.
Lastly, Lee sculpted three intricate plaster busts placed on cinder blocks, christened with hand-woven baskets, each growing crisp white salt from wire cages. These sculptures situate salt as a transportive medium, referencing the long history of its preservation while exploring the unique ways it holds and shapes the future.
Nia Lee: SALTBONE: Bust 1, 2, 3 Plaster, Salt grow on wire, basket, cinder blocks, PC Cinthya Silverstein
To the right of Nia Lee's work, you will find three towering tapestries created by educator and artist April Bey. The first is entitled When My Flow is Phuckin Ridiculous. Standing at over six feet tall, the woven tapestry is embellished with hand-sewn sherpa and glitter, creating a powerful image of a vibrant young woman. Adjacent to it, you find a sister tapestry entitled When Some of the Most Beautiful Thangs Come Out My Mouth, stretched across a mahogany fur wall. The final tapestry by Bey is entitled How Could I Be Inconspicuous. Each piece is trimmed with hundreds of brown and golden beads and custom golden hoop earrings. Often drawing inspiration from her real-life experiences as a Black American Bahamian queer person and self-identified blerd, Bey uses their work to reimagine the vivid multitude of their community and culture.
April Bey: When Some of the Most Beautiful Thangs Come Out My Mouth - Woven tapestry with hand-sewn sherpa, glitter, When My Flow is Phuckin Ridiculous - Woven tapestry with hand-sewn sherpa, glitter, How Could I Possibly Be Inconspicuous - Woven tapestry with hand-sewn sherpa, glitter. PC Cinthya Silverstein
Sovern LA's final showroom is dedicated to the work of Jessica Taylor Bellamy, a native Angeleno who explores the overlapping nature of utopia and dystopia. Her first piece is an oil painting entitled Pyrocumulus Daisy Portal. The painting is a configuration of an LA county landscape framed within an iron gate found in Miami's Morningside district. The piece makes a portal between the two spaces while demonstrating the connective impact of ecological devastation across geographical lines. Beside this oil-slicked gateway is a second oil-painted canvas entitled Uncommon Blue. Known for her creative repurposing of newspaper and printed documents, Bellamy constructs a butterfly outline from fragmented article clippings reporting on environmental disasters. The melancholic figure overlaps with a construction ball, as both hang in the air amidst the same dreamy skyscape.
Hung alone on a neighboring white wall is a third oil painting entitled Horizontal Thrust 1 (Blue Graffiti Highway). Created out of the desire to witness Bellamy's hometown through the perspective of the smog that wanders it, this piece depicts a blurred freeway landscape featuring another intricate fence, palm trees, and a silver road. The corresponding wall label encourages the viewer to consider the piece as a timeline rather than a stagnant shot and is constructed to become more hazy and indistinct the closer the viewer approaches.
Across from Horizontal Thrust 1 (Blue Graffiti Highway) is Ecology IV: Horizon of Manic Striving and Photogenic Decline. Made from paint, canvas, image transfer, dried wildflowers, video projection, sound, and a salvaged BMW e30 bumper, Bellamy transports the viewer into the perspective of an aged automobile part, thus challenging our conception of witnessship. The bumper reflects a series of video clips cataloging the destruction of a neighborhood poppy field. The footage often flashes between serene natural elements and the dense construction of man-made elements that are similarly planted beside them.
Into the Pluriverse is a vastly layered and unique exhibit made possible through the vision and collaboration of artists Nia Lee, April Bey, Jessica Taylor Bellamy, and curator Nordia Simmonds. Each piece serves as a portal that doesn't just tell you about the pluriverse, but instead invites you inside it. Blending together conversations of truth, witnessship, resistance, and identity, the exhibit leaves the viewer feeling both more full and more curious. Within the programming of the exhibit is a special event by participating artist Nia Lee entitled Mending the Salt Bone: A Black Food Futurism Participatory Performance and Tasting. You can find more information about this event and Into the Pluriverse's closing ceremony on Sovern LA's website.
Into the Pluriverse
Sovern LA
June 25–October 8, 2026
sovernla.com
Lacey Argus is a queer writer and educator living in Los Angeles. Her work focuses on art, queer theory, and the Gothic. Most days she enjoys reading fantasy books, walking her beagle, or burning baked goods.
