Black women certainly are at the center of my stories. I think part of this is from  my personal experience of growing up with women who are very powerful—to me—but very vulnerable in their society. That duality has always struck me, watching how people have to live in these situations, live in the bodies that we live in, and have to contort who we are in different spaces. Especially if you are poor and female in very stratified society. I think that as vessels of memory, of people who carry their stories, I see that as more than symbolism, I see that as survival. When you attach migration to it, there is a hunger in people like me to know everything from the story tellers, the story carriers in my life, because I absolutely need those stories. I desperately need them. I especially need them for the next generation of my family. I need them for  daughters and nieces, and for my nephews too. I need  them to know how we lived before they knew us. I need them to know who we were before we came here. I need them to know how we managed to survive, how we managed not to die. I need them to have these stories as tools for their future. In migration it becomes even more important, because you are so afraid to lose all that. You’re separated from the physical space where you were born. You can go back but it’s always changing. You’re always changing. What you are left with are the stories, and these stories come in bodies. And for me, it’s often a black female body like mine.

+Edwidge Danticat, “The Past Is Not Always Past:” A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat

in honor of Fet Gede / All Souls Day

i owe my life to the souls on the other side of the water. 

Black Mary - A Film by Kahlil Joseph

y'all, i'm floored...#foreverinspo

To coincide with Tate Modern's exhibition 'Soul of a Nation Art in the Age of Black Power' Tate commissioned filmmaker Kahlil Joseph to create a new and exclusive film inspired by the haunting black and white photography of Roy DeCarava.

Part 1 (of a two-part film) featuring Alice Smith's haunting rework of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ "I Put a Spell on You."

new x old wips.

IN THE WAKE OF CRISTÓBAL COLOMBO

In the Wake of Cristóbal Colombo, 2017 , Paper, spray paint, glitter and sequins on wood, 52 x 32.5 inches

i've reworked aspects of this so many times...i'm still not sure it's "finished."

if i could say anything about this piece, unresolved or not, it's a talk back to the inundation of negative press coverage on Haiti and Haitians in the West. coverage that promotes disaster capitalism, perpetuates retraumatization, and recycles old narratives of the historical while barely addressing actual history.

i found news clippings from the past two decades, i.e. coverage on everything from the 2010 earthquake, hurricanes Matthew, Harvey, Irma, and now Maria, the cholera outbreak brought on by UN peacekeepers, "boat people" and mass exodus, the blame placed on Haiti for HIV's "entrance" into the U.S., and more and doused them with coffee and salt. traditionally, coffee and salt is given to a person in shock or when one has to deliver bad news (that may cause shock). "The Paradise of God" is written across the bottom in sequins and engulfed by glitter. it's a reference to an entry in Christopher Columbus' nautical journal recounting his fleet's arrival to the island and his first impression(s). intent on enslaving the indigenous Taino - Arawak peoples and mining the island's gold, Haiti was the first island Columbus attempted to colonize in the West. eventually succeeding, Haiti would go from paradise to pearl to pariah under European rule and U.S. occupation. 

through this work and my ongoing project, The 10th Department, i am generating an insurgent archive that disrupts conventional archives, which perform violence through misinformation and disinformation. my own form of coffee and salt. 

**rather than use the Anglicized version of the Latin Christophorus Columbus aka Christoper Columbus, i've combined Cristóbal (Spanish for Christopher) and  Colombo (Italian for Columbus). 

in progress... 

"Overall, 'The Black Woman Is God' comports with SOMArts’ curatorial practices. The main gallery is a loft-like space with a second, windowless chamber on the far end. The placement of three-dimensional or otherwise large-scale works on the floor is usually deliberate and highly selective, and the paintings and smaller pieces are hung on the walls with the minimum viable amount of breathing room.

It’s not cluttered, exactly. But there is enough to keep the eye engaged that a piece that exerts a tractor beam from across the room can seem even more powerful. The one I have in mind is Tania L. Balan-Gaubert’s Sibyl # 3 / Zili Dechennen (Zili Unleashed). The Haitian-American Balan-Gaubert’s Sibyls series “aims to refuse Western demonization of African religion and ritual,” and while the hooded figure with an electrifying gaze in this work cannot be divorced from that context, it could also be read as a mysterious saint from Eastern Orthodox Christianity, with red and gold sequins and a multicolored mosaic halo. This Sibyl clutches her belly, which may be pregnant, and holds her left arm up, its palm forward. A human heart sits at her throat, and a bandanna with an American flag print conceals her mouth. It’s archetypal, nearly Tarot-esque. You cannot look away."

+Peter Lawrence Kane, SF WEEKLY

studio daze.

               new ideas.

                               new works. 

                                                   #amen.

SHE HAS RISEN: THE BLACK WOMAN IS GOD - The daily californian

image: JESSICA DOOJPHIBULPOL/ DAILY CAL STAFF

The press on #TBWIG has been so thoughtful and spot on.

Read my fav article so far here!!!!!! 

 

“The Black Woman is God” does not simply showcase Black female artists, it celebrates their divinity in the way that patriarchal religions honor the divinity of men. This subversion of Eurocentric, Anglocentric, Androcentric conceptions of spirituality promotes acceptance and inclusion of all subdominant religions and cultures. But most importantly, it allows for Black women to expose their own struggles, victories, and beliefs in order to truly embrace their magic."

+Julia Bertolero, Daily Cal