A MULTI-MEDIA MEMORIAL

Poet and vocalist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs debuted her multimedia project comprising the publication In Search of Sugarcane and the film The Break-Up as part of a “memorial service” for her long-time home in a postwar apartment building in Central Harlem, which was purchased and systematically demolished by a foreign investor in 2019-2022. The premiere took place at Dia Chelsea on March 29, 2025.

The performative installation featured the film, an altar to Diggs’ Apartment 5RE, and an accompanying publication, drawing from Diggs’ book of poetry, Village (2023). Taking inspiration from the state of tenant rights in New York and the mysterious phenomena known as “UEO” (unidentified European owner), the installation was a call for awareness to the national housing crisis, displacement, and the embodied impact of spatial and communal memory. 

Using text, performance, and moving-image, Diggs posed the questions: When is home no longer home? What are the dilemmas and legacies that perplex the native Harlemite? Why are UEOs like the Loch Ness Monster? 

— paraphrased from Dia Chelsea’s description of the work

PERSONAL CONNECTION

I have collaborated with LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs for over two decades, beginning with Dominata (2004), followed by Landscape on Hold (2009), and Fire & Fire at Symphony Space. Over time, our artistic partnership has grown into a deep friendship. LaTasha is more than a collaborator—she is a dear friend and sister, and I deeply admire and adore her as both an artist and a human being.

Just before the pandemic, LaTasha told me about the crisis in her rent-controlled building: sold to a foreign investor, tenants were pressured to leave, and she was the last one who stayed to fight. When I visited her during Covid for a surprise birthday Zoom, I climbed to her fifth-floor apartment through dark, gutted apartment units—an eerie, war-zone-like experience that stayed with me. I couldn't fathom how LaTasha managed to keep living there. I began filming the empty apartments immediately, with just my iPhone, trying to capture the fear and isolation of the environment.

In 2023, after LaTasha published a book of poems about this experience titled Village, she was invited to present the work at Dia Art Foundation. I insisted we revisit my video footage, together with LaTasha's own recordings and archival material, and create a film installation. With editor and sound designer Eve Cuyén, we wove in passages from Village and created green-screen sequences of LaTasha inhabiting the space.

The result, The Break-up, is a 20-minute piece that reflects what two years of her struggle may have felt like. It serves as both a portrait of LaTasha's personal fight and a broader story of housing in New York City.

IN SEARCH OF SUGARCANE, an excerpt

“During rainstorms, the roof leaks directly outside my door. Another leak appears in my smaller bedroom/once this year. Within minutes, the ceiling collapses. The last three holdouts are down to two (3RE has moved to Philly). I keep the disaster to myself. Don’t let them run you out. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 offers better shields. MCIs can no longer be used to grossly raise the rent. Granted, I am the sole tenant on the top floor with a hole in my ceiling. I am told by the owner’s rep that no amount of 311 complaints or phone calls from my city-council member would get them to fix the ceiling. How much longer do I hold down this fort?

A permit submitted to the city reveals plans to combine two apartments on the third floor to make a three-bedroom, two-and-half-bathroom unit. This process, labeled as ‘Frankensteining,’ establishes a ‘first rent.’ As the former apartment is erased, its rent history is no longer considered. The rm leading the renovation celebrates its incorporation of ‘sustainable’ building practices that curiously omit sustaining older neighborhoods or homes occupied by living, breathing human beings. They make the ‘unusable, usable.’ The mice take full residence. I imagine Kenosha’s ceiling, possessed by Mare or Krampus or Kludde, riding on my chest. Exhausted from this fight, I am no longer sleeping.” – LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs