Gabrielle Hickmon - A Juneteenth Presentation

"How You Play Spades is How You Play Life"

Local artist and writer Gabrielle Ione Hickmon presents her ethnographic research project "How You Play Spades is How You Play Life" in honor of Juneteenth. Card packs will be available for playing!

Gabrielle Ione Hickmon is an Ypsilanti-based writer and artist who is nationally and globally recognized for her creative works in connecting history, information research, and creativity. In her own words, Gabrielle is "interested in body memory, waiting rooms, layovers, circles, Black imaginaries, and ocular proof" (https://www.gabrielleionehickmon.com/).

In honor of Juneteenth, YDL-Mich Ave is fortunate to have Gabrielle present her ethnographic research project, How You Play Spades is How You Play Life (https://pudding.cool/2021/08/spades/), which received an Information is Beautiful award in 2022 from the Data Visualization Society (info here).

As Gabrielle explains: "Many of us grew up playing Spades. But very little information exists on how the card game developed and grew to become a fixture in African-American households. This Spades project is an attempt to establish a definitive record of a card game that has been central to African-American gatherings and how we connect with each other for decades. To gather data, we developed a survey and collected 500 responses. Then we built the interactive story and printed a physical deck so people could learn about Spades as they played."

This event will be live in our main room at Michigan Avenue, and Gabrielle will present her project. We will also have packs of playing cards out for folks who want to play Spades as we listen and learn.

Any questions or comments? Contact librarian Aaron Smith at asmith@ypsilibrary.org to learn more.

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