Film created by Reggie Davis.

The movies we watch and the music we listen to have an undeniable effect on our state of mind. And so why not harness the influential power of cinema by watching movies with inspiring social and mindfulness rich content. That stimulates the process of self-observation through reflective attention.

Swimming the Psalm of Seas is a video meditation. Offering a heart-centered, liberation through holding space for Black trauma and healing, artistically reshaped through liberation psychology, and African-centered psychology, and four culturally grounded domains of Black resilience (relationships, spirituality, identity, and active expression) that serve us as protective factors.

The film Swimming the Psalm of Seas is presented as a Cinematic nonverbal narrative with visuals. A storied tapestry of phenomenon and presence. That passes through the eyes as much as the heart. Video meditation using the mind to prepare the body for some future activity.
The viewer is physically woven into the texture of the piece through An Audio-Visual Visualization Meditation Experience. Hypnotic visuals that ‘breathe’ in time with resonant harmonic soundscapes made with scientific rigor to reduce stress.
This video meditation is so much more than police, violence and black trauma. It's about black movement, aesthetics, spirituality. Folklore and radical experimentation. Enhanced by contemplative music, traditional gospel, black spirituals and meditation soundscapes that accompanies this video with the intention of supporting viewers in dropping into a space of deep listening and feeling. A work toward healing that becomes and invitation for creative responses through mindfulness practices.
The concept of the meditation-image/video is built on the correspondence between the time-image of the video and the time-perception of the viewer. It is a special type of affection-image viewed in a rhythmic flow of montage motion design. From the viewer’s perspective, it is experienced in a meditative mode of consciousness. In meditation, time is said to slow down enriching and enhancing perceptions.
The idea for this film came from witnessing the atrocities against Black bodies over the last couple of years. That have left me struggling with some serious mental health issues including diagnosis of depression and PTSD. Generational trauma, and personal history dealing with my own racial experiences impacts us creatives of color in unique ways.
Our gifts of faith and resiliency allows us to breathe in this trauma, interpret and transform it, into a canvas of creative expression breathing out releasing, a cathartic beauty ,something Black , a jubilee of multitudes of Black identities and lived experiences fused through a Black creative energy that brings some of the excesses—and ugliness—of our present life into a measure of control on a video timeline in a topography of landscapes physical, environmental, imagined and profoundly spiritual. Even without the instances of trauma, the absence becomes a statement in itself.

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About Reggie Davis:

As an interdisciplinary artist Reggie's projects are a intergrated mix of sustainable found object, assemblage , new media, installation art and design with an integrative spirituality orientation that delineates an array of spiritual practices , integral arts, cultural histories ,psychologies , iconography and contemplative education allowing me to create artworks that become the physical expressions of a spiritual aesthetic. Crossovers can be found in art hybrids combining new media with traditional art using non-traditional materials such as a series of open framework found object figuratives crafted from reclaimed tire cables that viewers activate with their own iconography. Afro-Indigenous totemic sculptures crafted from felled urban street trees as part of The San Francisco Department of Public Works , Planning and Forestry Creative Reuse of Urban Wood Program.
Recent video works commissioned by TheMangalam Research Center for Buddhist studies. present aspects of the spiritual, in video art Installations serving as points of focus for mindfulness and meditative practices. Utilizing technology to translocate traditional art into interactive, immersive , embodied imagery. Integrated into a transformative experience immersive design systems installation framework.
With several of his animations becoming official selections at various national and international film festivals. The Phillip K. Dick film festival in New York City, and Los Angeles. And the Colortape International Film Festival, Australia.
Reggie's recently been the recipient of several grants. From the San Francisco Arts Commission . Funding a video art project . A color affirmative animated telling of the black experience through a visual narrative that's a a mix of 60's comic and street art aesthetics. A film providing a visceral commentary on the psychological impact of racism. As well, a Senior Cohort Grant from The African American Cultural Center funding that will be used for the creation of several Afro-indigenous hybrid totems. Commemorations on ancestry, and histories, that explore both the aesthetic qualities of totemic sculpture, as well as the symbolic, narrative, and trans-cultural borrowing of Afro indigenous motifs.