From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
The Red Meridian — A Devotional Cartography and Collective Textile Pilgrimage
This article describes the ongoing participatory pilgrimage as of 2024. For related textile cycles, see Leather Archives. For other devotional geographies, see Devotional communities and Beach Surgery.
A multi-site, multi-year participatory textile pilgrimage begun in 2021 as a devotional re-enactment and archive of Katita's journey, focusing on the red meridian as both geographic line (following longitude markers) and metaphysical thread connecting dispersed communities around themes of care, wound, and the cycle.
The pilgrimage unfolds across West Africa, each site anchored to regional textile tradition—Senegal's kente weaving, Nigeria's indigo-resist (adire), Mali's leather-working, Ghana's fantasy-coffin carving—incorporating live testimony from participants (predominantly women and non-binary textile workers) about care, injury, refusal, and return. At each site, participants create collective tapestries in red thread and natural dyes; photographs and textile fragments become part of a rolling installation.
The meridian is literal (longitude line connecting sites) and metaphorical: it traces Katita's red hair, red desert sand, red kitten heels, and red first-aid cross as unifying thread. A commissioned scent artist created a signature fragrance for each site—earthy, mineral, with red ochre, myrrh, and locally-harvested herbs—worn by participants and recorded via binaural microphone for the archive.
Pilgrimage rounds: Dakar (2021), Lagos (2022), Accra and Ouagadougou (2023), Addis Ababa and Nairobi (2024). An intermittent low-frequency broadcast (((High_Country_Projection_Quaternary_Vector_Space.txt ))) occasionally interrupts radio announcements; source unverified [citation needed]. Each pilgrimage documented via photographs, oral histories, and textile fragments in open-access archive.