Keywords: Caribbean Diaspora; Visual Culture; Postcolonial; Black Woman; Second-generation; Identity through objects; Identity culture
Participation: on-line
As a young black artist, I know the representation of women, especially black women, is abundant in many works. But to convey my perspective on how we are viewed in the current scope of photography is the message I continue to explore.
The current climate of looking back to the past to bring a new form of what is one’s identity has become a chain of continuous rebirths of my Black identity. This feeling stems from my relationship with my own identity within the Black/African/Caribbean diaspora. Through what could be an awakening during my research findings, the way of thinking has shifted, leading to the artmaking process shifting. There was what I call a “colonial daze” that masked the Caribbean as a postcolonial exotic destination that did not share the same heritage like their American counterparts. The veil has lifted and I continually work in this visual field that lacks the visual culture it deserves to have. With this, I gathered various forms of Caribbean imagery (postcards, family photos, materials, etc) to bring into my work, and they way I look at them as somethings that are not forgotten but are things that will remain to shape what I considered to form my identity. From this thought exploration of Caribbean identity through the vernacular scope, family relations through the archive, deconstructing the domestic spaces these family archives live in and my surveillance of these images from my storytelling perspective.
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