Yonki Shonibare - The British Library

Hybridity, Creolization, Mestizaje

Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies

http://www.gold.ac.uk/caribbean/

More about what we do and why

We:

are uniquely positioned as the only Caribbean-led Research Centre within a University environment with a unique focus on the local community and the academic;
have a strong record of involvement locally within the borough;
are highly regarded by its peers as evidenced by the research community;
have  a 24-year history that builds on strong foundations from the 1980s, staff knowledge and expertise at the highest level;
have events that boast an emergent publishing programme focused on the local and global;
have a committed number of experienced volunteers;
have strong professional and personal relationships with stakeholders and other organisations at a national and international level.
Our Mission
To become a leading international Resource and Research Centre for the study, promotion and dissemination of Caribbean and Diaspora culture. We aim to develop and capitalize upon our unique position as the only Caribbean-led Research and Resource Centre within a University environment that documents, promotes and fosters the history of Caribbean culture locally and globally.

We will continue to develop with a range of contemporary practitioners including writers, performers, oral historians, and technologists, the representation and promotion of Caribbean cultural knowledge and heritage in the UK, and internationally.  We will do this through an exploration of historical and contemporary cultural practices throughout the globe.  We will inspire and provoke critical discussion to promote the Centre’s aims.

queer theory - Mary Seacole

http://www.zefg.fu-berlin.de/Podcast_Audiodateien/Queere-Archive/index.html

social fabric - exhibition

   
Manchester cotton, courtesy of Joss Graham.

Social Fabric
19 January–10 March 2012



Iniva presents Social Fabric, an exhibition that uses textiles to explore colonial history, international trade, labour and militant politics. In the 19th century Karl Marx gave an account of the cotton trade tracking fifty years of boom and bust and the effects this had on workers in Britain and the colonies. This exhibition cross references different accounts of textile history, focusing on works by two contemporary artists Sudhir Patwardhan and Alice Creischer, presented alongside an extensive range of recent and historical archival material.

Alice Creischer's large-scale installation Apparatus for the Osmotic Compensation of the Pressure of Wealth during the Contemplation of Poverty tracks the threads that connect cycles of investment, disinvestment and decline. Inspired by a trip to India, the work looks at the economic and social impact of European colonialism and subsequent globalization. The craze for Indian Chintz caused protest amongst Spitalfields weavers in 1719, and a century later the restrictions on imports and the flooding of the Indian market turned the country from exporter to an importer, and devastated whole sections of its textile industry. This led to Gandhi's choice of the spinning wheel as a symbol of decolonisation, and caused Nehru to comment that—the history of cotton and textiles is not only the history of growth of modern industry in India, but in a sense it might be considered the history of India.'

Since the mid-1970s, Sudhir Patwardhan has depicted Mumbai and its urban proletariat. His painting Lower Parel (2001) shows 'Girangaon' (mill village) where the cotton mills that transformed the city's economy and led the Indian industrial revolution were located. By the 1970s textiles employed one in three of the city's workers and sucked in migrants from surrounding regions. New social institutions evolved with forms of cultural expression including street theatre, poetry and music. It was a hub for trade union activity and left politics. Lower Parel depicts this area after the mills closed following the 1982–3 strike, the largest and longest in history. It superimposes different urban strata—defunct factories, new small scale enterprises and high rise luxury apartments and invokes the workers struggle to keep the mills going and resist gentrification.

References in these works are developed through an extensive display of archival loans and artist interventions, including Company Paintings, Indian Chintz, Marx's journals, films, photographs, newspaper articles and recordings of mill workers testimonies. A curtain and two support structures, a table and wall unit, have been designed by Celine Condorelli to display the archival material.

A dynamic programme of events runs alongside the exhibition, including film screenings, talks by the artists, a workshop with Indian trade unionist Meena Menon, and a symposium.

Artists in the exhibition: Alice Creischer, Celine Condorelli, Archana Hande, Sudhir Patwardhan, Raqs Media Collective, Andreas Siekmann.

Screening programme: Ashim Ahluwalia, Anjali Monteiro, K.P. Jayasankar, The Otolith Group, Madhusree Dutta, Tushar Joag, Anand Patwardhan.

Research: Meena Menon, Jyotindra Jain, Prasad Shetty and Rupali Gupte.

Social Fabric is curated by Grant Watson, in collaboration with Christine Checinska, Nida Ghouse, Shanay Jhaveri, Nada Raza and Karen Roswell.

Social Fabric will tour to Lunds Konsthall from the 6th of April to the 27th of May 2012.


Social Fabric Symposium - Saturday 10 March, 10am–5pm.
Programmed by Christine Checinska, speakers include Professors Sarat Maharaj, John Hutnyk, Janis Jeffries and artist Sudhir Patwardhan. In collaboration with the Royal College of Art. Check www.iniva.org for venue and booking details.

Das Idiom der Erinnerung

17. Oktober 2011

Kreolisch auf Saint Lucia – der Kampf um den Erhalt einer bedrängten Sprache

Mädchen in Schuluniformen auf dem Nachhauseweg: Viele Schulen in Saint Lucia pflegen inzwischen auch die einheimische Kultur. (Bild: Imago)

Es hat seinen festen Platz in Pop-Musik, Politik und Kunst. Es steht für Lebenslust, für den Schmelztiegel der Völker und Rassen: Kreolisch, creole, créole gilt in vielen Sprachen als Synonym für das Crossover der Kulturen. Seine Entstehung aber reicht in die dunkle Zeit von Kolonialherrschaft und Sklaverei zurück.

Sven Weniger und Michael Marek

Castries, 5 Uhr 30 morgens: Es ist noch dunkel, die laue Luft weich wie Seide. In der Hauptstadt von Saint Lucia laufen bereits die Transistoren heiss. Sam Flood stürzt sich in den Tag. Und die Stimme des 42-Jährigen hat wieder einmal diesen drängenden Tonfall. Flood ist Radiomoderator auf Hot 105,3 und eine Legende. Juke Bois nennen sie ihn hier. Das heisst so viel wie: der Mann, der die Missstände «aufspiesst». In seiner Morgensendung kümmert sich Flood um die alltäglichen Ungerechtigkeiten: ein neuer Fall von Korruption, Polizeiwillkür, Verschwendung öffentlicher Gelder? Flood prangert die Schludrigkeit der Behörden an, die Ignoranz von Politikern. Niemand und nichts ist vor seiner beissenden Ironie sicher. Dafür lieben ihn seine Hörer. Umso mehr, als Juke Bois sie in ihrer eigenen Sprache anredet: auf Kreolisch.
Vierzehn Mal wechselte die tropisch grüne Karibikinsel, die zu den Kleinen Antillen gehört und kleiner als der Kanton Solothurn ist, im Laufe ihrer Geschichte zwischen Engländern und Franzosen den Besitzer. Das von den Kolonialherren als minderwertig taxierte Idiom ihrer Bewohner hatte dabei – noch bis in die jüngste Vergangenheit – einen schweren Stand.

Die Sprache der Sklaven

Als Nachfahren schwarzer Sklaven wurden die Lucianer jahrhundertelang unterdrückt. Unter britischer Verwaltung war Kreolisch, diese weiche Verbindung aus verschiedenen afrikanischen Sprachen und Französisch, verpönt und im öffentlichen Leben geächtet. So sehr, dass selbst die Insulaner es für minderwertig hielten. «Während meiner Kindheit verboten mir sogar meine Eltern, Kreolisch – oder Kwéyòl, wie wir hier sagen – zu sprechen, obwohl sie selbst kein Englisch konnten», erzählt Primus Hutchinson. Er machte Kreolisch in der Öffentlichkeit wieder salonfähig. Wir treffen den Vater des kreolischen Fernsehens und Radios in einem Café: «Meine Eltern hielten Kreolisch für rückwärtsgewandt, für ein Zeichen mangelnder Erziehung. Auch in der Schule war es verboten. Ich fand das damals schon sehr erniedrigend.»
Klein, mit pechschwarzer Haut und spindeldürr, sitzt uns Hutchinson gegenüber. Kaum ein Wort ist dem 72-jährigen Rentner nach der Begrüssung zu entlocken. Erst als die Frage nach den Anfängen seiner «Mission» aufs Tapet kommt, sprüht er urplötzlich vor Energie. Vor mehr als zwanzig Jahren fing Hutchinson an, für die Regierung Sendungen auf Kwéyòl zu produzieren. Zuerst waren es Nachrichten, dann Features, Dokumentationen und Musiksendungen. Sein Erfolg steht für die späte Anerkennung einer Sprache, die ihre Wurzeln in der düsteren Epoche des Sklavenhandels hat.
Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts wurden Menschen aus den verschiedensten Regionen Afrikas verschleppt. Sie mussten in ihrer neuen Heimat eine eigene, gemeinsame Sprache entwickeln, um sich untereinander, aber auch mit den «weissen Herren» verständigen zu können. Dabei bildete sich eine eigene Grammatik und Phonetik. Es entstand eine neue Muttersprache, mit der die nachfolgenden Generationen aufwuchsen: Kreolisch wird heute auf Karibikinseln wie Grenada, Trinidad, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique und Haiti gesprochen, aber auch auf Mauritius und den Seychellen. Und das, obwohl die Bewohner der Karibik niemals Kontakt mit denen des Indischen Ozeans hatten. Kwéyòl entwickelte sich überall offensichtlich in dieselbe Richtung – ein linguistisch-kulturelles Phänomen.

Melodischer Wortfluss

Markttag in Castries: Frauen feilschen vor und hinter einfachen hölzernen Ständen, die sich unter exotischen Früchten und Gewürzen biegen. Obwohl es noch Vormittag ist, stehen im Dampf der Garküchen schon die ersten Hungrigen. Aus den Pfannen steigt scharfer Hühnchenduft auf. Reis- und Fischgerichte werden zubereitet. Hier, im Alltag, ist die Sprache der Lucianer allgegenwärtig. Ein melodischer Wortfluss, der aus harten R ein gehauchtes W macht, Konsonanten wie Q und X nicht kennt, mit Akzenten die Vielfalt der Vokale steigert. Wer gut Französisch spricht, kann sich schnell verständlich machen und bekommt auch ein wenig von dem mit, was um ihn herum gesprochen wird. Gleich gegenüber dem Markt halten die Busse. Menschen drängeln sich vorbei. Jeder will einen Sitz in den kleinen Minivans haben, die in rasanter Fahrt um die ganze Insel kurven. Umgerechnet drei Franken kostet die Fahrt in den Süden. Billiger kann man nicht reisen. Immer wenn jemand entlang den Küstenstrassen aussteigen oder mitgenommen werden will, hält der Wagen. Dann geht die Tür auf, man begrüsst sich mit einem höflichen «Bonjou», und den Rest der schaukeligen Reise verbringen wir inmitten eines Tanzes: Die mit bunten Perlen, Kettchen, Strass und Spangen im Zaum gehaltenen Frisuren der Damen wippen unablässig zur Lieblingsmusik des Fahrers. Heute ist es Educator, einer der populärsten Sänger Saint Lucias. Und natürlich singt er auf Kreolisch.
In Cap Estate, im Norden der Insel, lebt Llewellyn Xavier. Er ist einer der berühmtesten Maler von Saint Lucia. Seine Bilder hängen in den grossen Museen und Galerien der Welt. Llewellyn ist ein Globetrotter, ein stattlicher Bonvivant mit makellosem Oxford-Akzent in der sonoren Stimme: «Ich bin bei meiner Grossmutter aufgewachsen, die nur Kreolisch sprach. Die Sprache hat für mich einen grossen emotionalen Wert. Viele Ausdrücke im Kreolischen gibt es gar nicht auf Englisch. Unsere Folklore ist kreolisch, Geschichten voller Moral, über Gut und Böse. Genauso wollte ich mich auch auf der Leinwand ausdrücken!»
In seiner weissen Villa hoch über der Küste schlagen vier grossformatige Ölgemälde den Betrachter in Bann. Mit ihrem intensiven Farbspiel wirken sie wie schillernde Muschelbänke, die die Buntheit der Karibik eingefangen haben. Bei einem Glas Rotwein im Atelier erklärt der Künstler, warum sein Werk ohne die Sprache seiner Vorfahren undenkbar wäre: «Unsere Sprache und das, was ich sehe, wenn ich aus diesem Fenster blicke, sind zwei Seiten derselben Medaille. Beides inspiriert mich bis heute. Dennoch hat meine Kunst keinen rein kreolisch geprägten Ausdruck. Ich hatte das Glück, schon in meiner Jugend nach Barbados, England und durch die Welt reisen zu können. Ich habe also nicht nur diesen Aspekt in mein Werk eingebracht, sondern bin auch stark von anderen Einflüssen geprägt.»

Englisch – Sprache der Elite

Während Kreolisch im Alltag der Lucianer lebendig ist, tat sich die geistige Elite der Insel damit deutlich schwerer. Künstler, Politiker, Wissenschafter – wer auch immer etwas auf sich hielt, hatte eine streng britische Ausbildung genossen. Viele beherrschten die Sprache ihrer Vorfahren gar nicht mehr. Selbst der aus Castries gebürtige Literaturnobelpreisträger Derek Walcott, der stets den Kulturimperialismus der europäischen Kolonialherren verdammt hatte, tat dies ausschliesslich auf Englisch. Mittlerweile aber ist Kreolisch aus dem Kulturbetrieb Saint Lucias nicht mehr wegzudenken. Im Theater, in der Musik, in den Medien findet die Sprache der schwarzen Vorfahren im öffentlichen Leben immer grössere Anerkennung. Kürzlich wurden sogar Teile des Evangeliums auf Kreolisch übersetzt. Für Llewellyn Xavier war es einer der bewegendsten Momente seines Lebens, die Botschaft der Bibel in seiner Muttersprache zu lesen. Das neue sprachliche Selbstbewusstsein zeigt sich auch in der Politik: Die Generalgouverneurin von Saint Lucia, Pearlette Louisy, eine studierte Sprachwissenschafterin, hält ihre Parlamentsreden auch in der Landessprache. Vor gut dreissig Jahren wäre das noch unmöglich gewesen.

Erhalt des sprachlichen Erbes

Seit einiger Zeit bemüht sich das Folk Research Centre in Castries um den Erhalt von Kwéyòl. Dort versucht man, das sprachliche Erbe Saint Lucias digital zu archivieren und für jedermann zugänglich zu machen. Kentry Jeanpierre arbeitet in einer heruntergekommenen Villa hoch über dem Stadtzentrum. Dass es hier an Geld mangelt, ist auf den ersten Blick zu sehen. Die Räumlichkeiten sind kahl und schmucklos, in Kentrys Büro stehen zwei Stühle, ein Schreibtisch, ein Telefon und ein alter PC. Kentry organisiert die Arbeit der Forschungseinrichtung mit bescheidenen finanziellen Mitteln. Das meiste Geld werde gespendet, sagt er: «Wegen unserer kolonialen Geschichte schauen die Leute erst einmal ins Ausland, wenn es um die Zukunft unseres Landes geht. Wir hier im Folk Research Centre wollen zeigen, dass wir stolz auf uns selbst sein können. Und wir wollen auch die Lucianer dazu ermutigen, dies als Realität anzuerkennen.» Deshalb hat das kleine Forschungszentrum angefangen, alle Tonaufnahmen in Kwéyòl zu sammeln, die auf der Insel zu finden sind. Bis jetzt sind es über zweitausend, meist auf alten Tonbändern und in schlechtem Zustand. Das Material aufzubereiten, zu digitalisieren und dann ins Internet zu stellen, ist das wichtigste Ziel. Und die grösste Herausforderung. Denn öffentliche Gelder gibt es kaum dafür.
In Bouton, einem kleinen Dorf in Nähe der Inselhauptstadt, balanciert hoch auf einem Kliff das Schulhaus der Bouton Combined School. Mit Geldern der deutschen Entwicklungshilfe wurde gerade die neue Küche der Grundschule eröffnet. Ausländer sieht man hier nur sehr selten. Dementsprechend aufgeregt sind die Kinder, als wir aus den Wagen steigen: Etwa zwanzig Mädchen und Buben zwischen acht und zwölf Jahren kommen aus den drei Klassenräumen. Sie umschlingen unsere Beine, greifen nach unseren hellen Haaren, lachen; einige Mutige fragen uns auf Englisch, woher wir kommen. Bernadette Southwell, die Direktorin, ruft sie geduldig zur Ruhe. Denn sie sollen für uns kreolische Kinderlieder singen. Klatschend laufen die Kinder im Kreis, die älteren nehmen die kleineren bei der Hand, die sich mit ernsten Gesichtern darauf konzentrieren, den Rhythmus einzuhalten.
«Englisch und Kwéyòl müssen sich in der Schule ergänzen», sagt Bernadette Southwell, eine bedächtige Frau in dunkelgrauem Kostüm. «Beide Sprachen müssen parallel unterrichtet werden, damit unsere Kinder optimale Zukunftschancen haben.» Über dreissig Jahre Schuldienst liegen bereits hinter der Lehrerin, Zeit genug, sich Gedanken über den Sprachenkonflikt auf Saint Lucia zu machen: «Wenn wir das schaffen, glaube ich nicht, dass die Sprache unserer Eltern in Gefahr ist», meint Bernadette Southwell. «Das Problem ist, dass die Leute zwar Kreolisch sprechen, viele aber nicht schreiben können. Zudem gab es lange Zeit keine verbindliche Orthographie für das Kreolische; wir hatten keine Schriftform festgelegt, um es als Sprache unterrichten zu können.»

Sprache und Herkunft

Nur gerade zwanzig Jahre ist es her, dass der Dorfschullehrer Jones Mondesir aus Soufrière das erste kreolische Wörterbuch schrieb. Und erst seit 2001 gibt es eine kind- und schulgerechte Version, das «Kwéyòl Dictionary». Es wird herausgegeben vom Erziehungsministerium Saint Lucias. Auch die Kinder der Bouton Combined School lernen damit. Kreolisch gewinnt wieder an Einfluss auf Saint Lucia, da ist sich Bernadette Southwell sicher: «Für uns Lucianer hat es eine grosse geschichtliche Bedeutung. Die Sprache sagt uns etwas über unsere Herkunft, woher wir kamen, wo wir begannen und wo wir heute stehen. Als die Sklaven in die Karibik kamen, brauchten sie eine Sprache, um sich miteinander zu verständigen. Wir als Volk müssen unseren Ursprung kennen. Und Kreolisch erinnert uns daran, wer wir sind.»
Am nächsten Morgen ist Sam Flood wieder auf Sendung und wettert gegen die Ungerechtigkeiten auf Saint Lucia. Und die Menschen werden ihn weiterhin dafür lieben, dass er so redet wie sie selbst – auf Kwéyòl.
Michael Marek lebt und arbeitet in Hamburg als Autor für ARD und DRS; daneben ist er für zahlreiche Zeitungen und Zeitschriften tätig. Sven Weniger arbeitet seit zwanzig Jahren als Journalist für Tageszeitungen und Magazine.

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grace ndiritu

 

Grace Ndiritu: Racial stereotyping and cultural difference between east and west is explored in Ndiritu's installation The Nightingale. Wrapping a piece of fabric around her head, Ndiritu changes her identity through a series of movements as the headgear is transformed from veil to bandanna, gag to turban, from blindfold to burka.

http://eastsideprojects.org/ongoing/curtain-show/

Grace Ndiritu, Still Life: Green Textiles, Sitting Textiles, White Textiles, Lying Down Textiles 2007

http://www.lux.org.uk/screening-room/grace-ndiritus-week-news-7-places-we-think-we-know-7-news-stories-we-think-we-underst

Eastside Projects presents an artist’s talk with Grace Ndiritu (b. 1976 Birmingham, UK, lives and works in London). Ndiritu’s practice combines advertising, documentary and music video strategies within the framework of performance video art, and her work is currently exhibited as part of Curtain Show at Eastside Projects: Still Life, 2007, is set in a large curtained area formed from West African fabrics from Holland, fabricated in China and available in Birmingham’s rag market. Ndiritu’s series of four videos use West African textiles in a sensual and, at times, unnerving physical performance by the artist to the camera.
Previous solo exhibitions include Still Life and Responsible Tourism, Chisenhale Gallery, London, 2007, and the 51st Venice Biennale, 2005. Recent group shows include Dress Codes, International Center of Photography, New York, 2009; Flow, Studio Museum Harlem, New York, 2008; Dakar Biennale, Senegal, 2008. Her work is housed in private collections in the USA and Europe and museums collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her films are distributed by LUX.

Yinka Shonibare: "Nelson's Ship in a Bottle"

Yinka Shonibare MBE discusses the theatricality and sense of wonder inherent in his public sculpture "Nelson's Ship in a Bottle," installed on the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. Situated across from "Nelson's Column," a monument erected to honor Admiral Lord Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, the brightly-colored sails of Shonibare's boat reference the complex heritage of British colonialism and its multicultural present.

Known for using batik in costumed dioramas that explore race and colonialism, Yinka Shonibare MBE also employs painting, sculpture, photography, and film in work that disrupts and challenges our notions of cultural identity. Taking on the honorific MBE as part of his name in everyday use, Shonibare plays with the ambiguities and contradictions of his attitude toward the Establishment and its legacies of colonialism and class. In multimedia projects that reveal his passion for art history, literature, and philosophy, Shonibare provides a critical tour of Western civilization and its achievements and failures.

handsworth songs

An interesting and original film, Handsworth Songs is an unconventional collage of news reports, eyewitness footage, interviews and abstract imagery. The whole film plays out as a dreamy rush of imagery and sounds: considerable credit should be given to the range of footage employed and juxtaposed against suitably atmospheric music. Closer to documentary or verite, the film traces memories of immigration to Britain in the early 50's through archive footage and brings us into the present day with footage shot by the Black Audio Film Collective. A serious, very watchable, artistic examination of the causes, effects and aftermath of the riots in Birmingham in the early 80's, Handsworth songs is abstract without resorting to inarticulacy.

Renee Green: Revue 1990

In the mixed media installation Revue, installation artist Renee Green combined several visual images and texts pertaining to the black female body: a small diminutive representation of the Hottentot Venus is centrally placed in the installation, surrounded by a series of photographically manipulated images of Josephine Baker.  Framing these images on both sides run a row of texts, some of which quote Josephine Baker's critics and others excerpts from 19th century travel accounts.  The installation also includes a small open cabinet on which a toy circus comprising several miniaturized animal representations is placed.  On the floor in front of the installation another wind-up animal, a lion, is caged in its surroundings.  The wind-up toy has been viewed by critics as stand in for "The Hottentot Venus," who was similarly caged and performed the part of an animal.

In the installation, Green deals with visual representations of the black female body, like the Hottentot Venus and Josephine Baker, which were prominently positioned at the center of Britain and France's popular exoticized gaze.  Interestingly, Green's manipulation of the scale of the images, particularly of the small Hottentot Venus image, and the blurred focus of the Baker photographs precisely resists visual apprehension.

Green also concentrations on the fascination with the black female body as manifest discursively in nineteenth century travel literature and in critiques of Baker's performances.  In contrast to the visual images the texts are blown up larger than life.  One of the enlarged panels of the excerpts from a travel account reads: "The dance of the Negresses is incredibly indecent . . . she gets into positions so lascivious, so lubricious that it's impossible to describe them . . . It's true that the Negresses don't appear to have the depraved intentions which one would imagine; it's a very old custom, which continues innocently in this country; so much so that one sees children of six performing this dance, certainly without knowing what they're leading up to."  The visual and discursive mediations on the black female both in the metropoles of Britain and France and in distant countries, as recorded by a traveler, are juxtaposed in the installation.
 Revue was installed as part an exhibition The Body as Measure at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College in 1994.  Revue was reinstalled for the exhibition Mirage: Enigmas of Race, Difference, and Desire in London in 1995.

Quote from Green


      In particular I was interested in the way that an artist (filmmaker) and writer such as Laura Mulvey was trying to rethink the way in which certain ideas about visual pleasure were developed.  I was also trying to figure out the way in which a body could be visualized, especially a black female body, yet address the complexity of reading that presence without relinquishing pleasure and history. (Read 146 )
     



Bibliography:

Fusco, CoCo. English is Broken Here. New York: The New Press, 1995.

Guillermo, Gomez-Peña.  The New World Border. San Francisco: City Lights, 1996.

A site maintained by Gomez-Peña.

Coco Fusco: Undiscovered Amerindians, 1992

Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Peña. Undiscovered Amerindians, 1992. (Click on the image to see a larger version)

In order to address the widespread practice of human displays, Fusco and Gomez-Peña enclosed their own bodies in a ten-by -twelve-foot cage and presented themselves as two previously unknown "specimens representative of the Guatinaui people" in the performance piece "Undiscovered Amerindians." Inside the cage Fusco and Peña outfitted themselves in outrageous costumes and preoccupied themselves with performing equally outlandish "native" tasks. Gomez-Peña was dressed in an Aztec style breastplate, complete with a leopard skin face wrestler's mask. Fusco, in some of her performances, donned a grass skirt, leopard skin bra, baseball cap, and sneakers. She also braided her hair, a readily identifiable sign of "native authenticity."

 In a similar fashion to the live human spectacles of the past, Fusco and Gomez-Peña performed the role of cultural "other" for their museum audiences. While on display the artists' "traditional"  daily rituals ranged from sewing voodoo dolls, to lifting weights to watching television to working on laptop computers. During feeding time museum guards passed bananas to the artists and when the couple needed to use the bathroom they were escorted from their cage on leashes. For a small donation, Fusco could be persuaded to dance (to rap music) or both performers would pose for Polaroids. Signs assured the visitors that the Guatinauis "were a jovial and playful race, with a genuine affection for the debris of Western industrialized popular culture . . . Both of the Guatinauis are quite affectionate in the cage, seemingly uninhibited in their physical and sexual habits despite the presence of an audience." Two museum guards from local institutions stood by the cage and supplied the inquisitive visitor with additional (equally fictitious) information about the couple. An encyclopedic-looking map of the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, showed the supposed geographic  location of their island. Using maps, guides, and the ambiguous museum jargon, Fusco and Gomez-Peña employed the common vocabulary of the museum world to stage their own display.

Despite Fusco and Gomez-Peña's professed intentions that Undiscovered Amerindians should be perceived as a satirical commentary, more than half of the visitors to the museums who came upon the performance believed that the fictitious Guatinaui identities were real.

In 1992, Fusco and Gomez-Peña first staged the performance on Columbus Plaza, Madrid, Spain, as a part of the event Edge '92 Biennial, organized in commemoration of the quincentennial of Columbus' voyage to the New World. The performance piece had an illustrious two year exhibition history  including performances at Covent Garden in London, The National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., The Field Museum in Chicago, the Whitney Museum's Biennial in New York, the Australian Museum of Natural History and finally in Argentina, on the invitation of the Fundacion Banco Patricios in Buenos Aires.

Quote about Undiscovered Amerindians from Coco Fusco:

According to Fusco, she and Gomez-Peña aimed to conduct a "reverse ethnography . . . Our cage became a blank screen onto which audiences projected their fantasies of who and what we are. As we assumed the stereotypical role of the domesticated savage, many audience members felt entitled to assume the role of colonizer, only to find themselves uncomfortable with the implications of the game"  (Fusco 47).

janek sinon

Janek Simon presents new understandings of geography and distance in our technologically globalised world.

He has been inspired by the concept of ‘the end of geography’ and for his solo exhibition, Simon is undertaking a research project revisiting key locations of the Trans-Atlantic Trade Triangle - namely West Coast Africa, the Caribbean and Bristol - developing a series of artworks that will result from the experiences and exchanges on his travels. This historical route is revisited through the lens of today’s technologically-orientated perception of geographic space, distance and globalised trade.

Passing for White

Passing for white is where you get people to assume you are white even though you are not pure white. Millions of blacks in America have done it down through time so that now a tenth of all white Americans are at least one-tenth black.
Passing is a direct consequence of how race works in America. Because of the One Drop Rule if you look at all part black African you are seen as “black” by “whites” and suffer all the racism that goes with that.
The government does not keep records about your race – it is not on your passport or even birth certificates any more – so it comes down to how you look - and, to a degree, how you talk and dress and act.
which-is-negro-which-is-whiteIn the old days to pass you had to move away to some town where no one knew your family. Many were not willing to do that. These days, though, in big cities few people are ever going to meet your family, so it is much easier to pass, at least part of the time.
It was more important in the past when racism was worse, but it is still going on, some say at a rate of about 35,000 a year. Men seem to do it far more than women.
According to one study about one person in 500 who is born to black parents looks white. If you are less than one-eighth black by blood you have a good chance of passing, but you can be as much as a fourth black and still pass. It all depends on how you look – and what likely story you can tell people who get curious about your background. Some say they are Sicilian, Arab or American Indian.
Some people are part black and do not even know it because they have been lied to or kept in the dark about their family history.
From looking at the DNA of white Americans we can tell that the mixing and passing has been going on all along for 400 years and not just in the 1600s or the late 1900s when mixed-race marriages were allowed by law throughout the country.
The census also tells us that passing is going on: Every ten years the government counts everyone in the country and, among other things, asks what their race is. From that and immigration records you can tell that there are fewer blacks and more whites than there should be: blacks are disappearing without dying or leaving the country and whites are appearing without ever being born or entering the country. A study done along these lines in 1958 showed that 21% of whites must be part black.

In American fiction those who pass often come to a bad end – the idea of the tragic mulatto. The most famous example is “The Imitation of Life”, a book twice made into a film by Hollywood. A true-life example of someone who passed is Anatole Broyard, pictured above.

Adrian Piper: Cornered 1988 (creview and reaction)

ART IN REVIEW; Adrian Piper
By KEN JOHNSON
Published: November 17, 2000


Adrian Piper's art, the subject of this 35-year retrospective, is not pretty. It is abrasive, didactic and aesthetically blunt. But Ms. Piper, 52, is not interested in providing pleasure. She wants to make people behave better. Combining Minimalism, Conceptualism and Performance Art, and using tools ranging from pencil to audio-video installation, she has worked since about 1970 to force viewers into an unbearable awareness of their personal complicity in what she views as a pervasively racist, xenophobic and unjust system.

At her best, Ms. Piper produces disturbingly intimate psychological theater aimed at the racial anxieties of an art-world audience more or less tacitly taken to be white and liberal. In the dark, claustrophobic interior of ''Four Intruders Plus Alarm System'' (1980), you are confronted by a quartet of illuminated transparencies depicting menacing-looking black men with eerie, glowing eyes. Headphones play Ms. Piper's recitations of speeches by fictive white people, who talk about black people in egregiously condescending or overtly racist ways. It is not subtle, but it can get you thinking about your own shadowy prejudices.
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In the riveting video ''Cornered'' (1988), the artist herself sits demurely at a desk backed into a corner. Calmly she declares, ''I'm black,'' (which is not obvious as she has light skin and straight hair) and proceeds to quietly harangue us about why we (presumably white) viewers might be bothered by this announcement. Do we think she is causing unnecessary trouble? Would it be better for her to pass for white? Then she argues that because of widespread miscegenation, most supposedly white people are actually black according to the laws of certain Southern states. So, at the end, when she demands to know what we are going to do with this new information, we are cornered ourselves, pushed to decide whether to continue accepting the racist status quo or begin to live differently.

The big question is, does Ms. Piper's hectoring, often bitterly sarcastic approach, actually work? Is anyone really awakened from moral somnolence? Tweaked, certainly; but truly and deeply changed?


-----

27 October 2001
Letters Editor
The New York Times
Weekend Section
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036


To the Editor:

When I first saw Ken Johnson's review of my New Museum retrospective last November 17, 2000 ("Art in Review: Adrian Piper"), the first thing I noticed was how similar in tone and tactics it was to many reviews of my Alternative Museum retrospective in 1987 and exhibitions I had immediately thereafter. That retrospective marked the beginning of my professional rehabilitation, after approximately fifteen years of obscurity following the art world's discovery of my race and gender in the early 1970s. But in 1987 I enraged even more people than I had in 1972, and many of the reviews showed it. They had three features in common: (1) rampant factual misrepresentation of my work and artistic motives, (2) a hostile tone, and (3) the use of these misrepresentations as an excuse for the hostility.

I made the decision at that time to communicate to the community of art critics that I would not tolerate rampant factual misrepresentation of my work. I replied in writing to each such review with a list of factual corrections and/or factual assertions made by the critic for which no factual basis had been supplied. For about three years, I wrote a lot of letters. It was a very depressing and demoralizing task. But I felt it was important to try to set a minimum standard of respectful treatment of the work of African American women artists, below which no critical review would dare to sink. At the time I was the first and only African American woman artist given serious and sustained recognition by the mainstream art world. So I recognized the necessity of this task as part of the price of breaking new ground.

I thought that task had been long since completed. In recent years I have felt relatively secure that critical reviews of my work could be relied upon to get at least most of the facts right, whether the critic liked my work or not. Even when I first saw Johnson's review, I tried to dismiss it as an anomaly. Johnson had reviewed my work twice before (for Art in America), and had demonstrated the ability to write thoroughly and judiciously about it despite his evident personal antipathy toward it. I respected him for that, as a critic and an intellectual. So I tried to explain away his New York Times review as motivated by a bad mood, or perhaps an attempt to impress his new employer, and remained silent.

I now understand that Johnson's review was not an isolated case, but part of an emerging pattern among some mainstream publications – the same pattern I fought against so hard over a decade ago. I now understand how little has changed, and that I will now have to fight this battle all over again. So in the remainder of this letter I am going to list the factual misrepresentations in Johnson's review of my work (I enclose a copy for your recollection), and close with some comments as to their significance.
(1) I do not want to "make people behave better."

(2) I do not work to "force" anyone into anything.

(3) I do not view "the system" as "pervasively racist, xenophobic and unjust."

(4) I do not "more or less tacitly" take the "art-world audience to be white and liberal."

(5) I do not presume the viewers of Cornered to be white.

(6) I do not make "attempts at psychological manipulation."

(7) My Decide series, which includes How to Handle Black People: A Beginner's Manual, is not a response to any work by Barbara Kruger.

All of these factual mistakes purport to report my beliefs, motives, and assumptions. There is enough in print – by me as well as by others – as to my actual beliefs, motives, and assumptions that Johnson has read. So he knows that (1) – (7) are false. What they add up to, however, is nevertheless coherent: a picture of me as trying to pressure and manipulate white viewers into shedding their racism, and of my work as a footnote to Barbara Kruger.

As usual in reviews of this sort, these distortions then serve as the foundation for Johnson's overt antagonism – less toward my work than toward me personally. To Johnson, I am "hectoring;" "bitterly sarcastic;" "nothing if not intelligent;" "have the touch of a sledgehammer;" have "an off-putting, morally bullying tone;" and am "heavy-handed and calculating." These characterizations, too, amount to a coherent and very familiar picture: that of an angry, overbearing, pushy, manipulative black woman.

Now since (1) – (7) are false, they do not provide any foundation for this familiar picture. So what we – or, I should say I – am left with is Johnson's picture of me, and his obvious antagonism toward this picture of me (which I do not take personally because, like all racial stereotypes, it doesn't have much to do with me).
Adrian Piper

Adrian Piper: Cornered 1988

Yinka Shonibare and the Search for Africa

Yinka Shonibare and the Search for Africa by Ellen Brooks

When British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare was told by his teachers he needed to incorporate “Africa” into his art, to relate more to his “African” heritage, he went shopping. In the Brixton markets in his home of London he found a miraculous textile called Dutch wax. Piled among second-hand clothes, and smelling of the neighborhood’s mostly African and Caribbean cuisine, Shonibare decided these textiles were exactly what had been missing from his identity. Dutch wax textiles were developed in the nineteenth century in the Netherlands, in an attempt to challenge the production of batik cloth in Indonesia. The fabrics were actually rejected by the very Indonesian market for which they were intended, leaving the Dutch and British manufacturers to try to sell the textiles in a second colonial outpost, West Africa. The contradictory nature of the textiles has become more and more integral to Shonibare’s art as his career has progressed.[i]

Yinka Shonibare - MBE

Yinka Sonibare - Gallantry and Criminal, 2002

Shonibare nimmt Bezug auf eine "Grand Tour", eine Landpartie von Adligen im 18. Jahrhundert. Die Kostüme sind aus bedruckten afrikanischen Stoffen geschneidert.

Yinka Shonibare, a British Nigerian artist working in the twenty first century, represents more than just a meeting of two identities; his art more than just Africa meeting the West. Best known for his sculptural installations, Shonibare dresses life-size headless mannequins in elaborate Victorian fashions. The cloth he chooses for these clothes, however, has a trajectory of its own. Dutch wax is a complicated material, with roots in both Europe and Africa and meaning that changes upon its context. Using the Dutch wax to upset the inherent harmony of the art historical importance his works recall, Shonibare plays with how we interpret one another. In the piece 100 Years from 2000 he takes his game to a new level. Exploiting the modernist form of the grid with Dutch wax, Shonibare uses the size and conflicting materials of paint and textile to represent more than just a joke. 100 Years exposes a deeper entanglement: a more painful relationship between Africa and the West that has been masked with both humor and ignorance for over a century.

Maja Bajevic - IMPORT / EXPORT