Cymbee: An Afro-Carolinian Mermaid Tale is a collaboration between painter Julyan Davis and poet Glenis Redmond, begun when Davis was artist-in-residence at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina (2018).
The collaboration depicts a narrative: that of the Cymbee, the Kongo Water spirit who crosses the Middle Passage, bearing witness to summoning events in the history of American enslavement. The story depicts her capture, and Charleston’s subsequent Mermaid Riot. It culminates in the Cymbee’s place in the South today. The most recent product of this joint venture has been the creation of a vinyl record of Glenis’s poetry, recorded, produced and pressed at Asheville’s own Citizen Vinyl.
*ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART VISITING ARTIST SALES GALLERY*