Strange Fruit Memorial
This is the first time that I have made work about Black suffering and black suffering Spectatorship. In a class full of white and non-black individuals, I am putting images of lynched black bodies on display so they could gaze upon them and critique. However, I didn't take into consideration how I would feel as I viewed the mutilated and abused bodies of my people. How I would feel as I chose the "best" lynching photo that I could find. All the while having to chose only based off of my peripheral vision.
You see, I couldn't gaze directly upon the bodies. I couldn't confront the white spectators who looked boldly and proudly at the camera. It was truly a traumatizing experience and subject matter that I will NEVER work with again, but I was compelled to create.
In a way, it has helped me release the tension that I have felt while reading the violence that was carried out on the pages of my theoretical text. I've seen, I've heard, and I've witnessed the acts of violence and hate that was captured and is now forever cemented in torturous repetitive agony. The photograph holds so many untold and unseen stories about the black experience, but it also locks the experience of the captured in place to be viewed over and over and over again.
These boxed frames become black bodies. They become the window in which to view. They become the lost souls of the black. As I hang them, I feel guilt for wanting to hang them in a white institution. inadvertently continuing black suffering Spectatorship. All I know is that I am so sorry that this has happened to my people. I recognize the atrocities that was carried out on your body because of your skin, but I can not focus on this pain anymore.
You see, I couldn't gaze directly upon the bodies. I couldn't confront the white spectators who looked boldly and proudly at the camera. It was truly a traumatizing experience and subject matter that I will NEVER work with again, but I was compelled to create.
In a way, it has helped me release the tension that I have felt while reading the violence that was carried out on the pages of my theoretical text. I've seen, I've heard, and I've witnessed the acts of violence and hate that was captured and is now forever cemented in torturous repetitive agony. The photograph holds so many untold and unseen stories about the black experience, but it also locks the experience of the captured in place to be viewed over and over and over again.
These boxed frames become black bodies. They become the window in which to view. They become the lost souls of the black. As I hang them, I feel guilt for wanting to hang them in a white institution. inadvertently continuing black suffering Spectatorship. All I know is that I am so sorry that this has happened to my people. I recognize the atrocities that was carried out on your body because of your skin, but I can not focus on this pain anymore.
Strange Fruit Memorial
Ink jet transfer on Wood
2021
Strange Fruit Memorial (Detail Shot )
Strange Fruit Memorial
Video clip
Billie Holiday -Strange Fruit
