If I Have To Liberate Myself, Then I Will
If I have to liberate myself, then I will.
What is the space that is black, and the space that is woman?
What happens when one occupies living within the microcosm of institutions, alone?
Or does she just feel alone?
But is there really a difference?
Being “the only” of anything in an environment ignites a particular mental condition that causes contrasted forms of regressive behaviour whether ignited by fear, stress, anger or frustration. For myself, personally, I realized I was socially and emotionally regressed, because I would notice how unengaged and disinterested I was in discussions I would normally take part in. I have often had conflicting conversations with myself while functioning within the multiple realities of being tokenized and being part of a community where I feel I belong. Eventually I learned that at one point I was more exhausted than angry, which led me to thinking about a novel by Jayne Allen titled, Black Girls Must Die Exhausted, a story about a thirty-three year old black woman who is forced to reevaluate her positions around her profession, race and family. However, I didn’t want to live or die exhausted. I began to see it was affecting my work and my day-to-day life.
If I Have To Liberate Myself, Then I Will, 2020, is a work of self liberation. By inserting my body in spaces via performance and mixed media paintings, I eventually arrived at a space of closure for the feeling of isolation I had. Emerging beyond acts of shrinking myself from unnecessary assimilation, to allowing myself to live and breathe in this dynamic intersection of being both of woman and black, I refuse to live or die exhausted.
In order to understand how I arrived at this work, it’s important that I contextualize some of my personal background.
Background - A Foundation in Racism: Burnt Marshmallow
Throughout my life I have experienced notable moments of racism. I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where every holiday was widely celebrated and taught in its entirety, except for Black History Month. This recognition of the history of Black-Americans was condensed to merely a day, or a week if we were lucky. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was not observed until 1993. My earliest memory of racism was being called a dirty, burnt marshmallow on a kinder-school playground. The confusion I felt after realizing that I could not scrub the “black” off my skin later that night in the bathtub is still vivid today. Later I realized that not only was I almost always the tallest person in my grade, I was also either the only black person, or one of two. The memories continue: in high school my basketball teammates asked me to “speak ghetto” to the predominantly black team that we were playing against that night. Ten years later, I was working in corporate America. I remember entering the room and only counting two other black employees in the entire marketing department. One day, my boss hovered over me to admire how “cool” my new Fulani braids were, to then only call them “Bo Derek braids.” Who the fuck is Bo Derek?
In spite of years of being in spaces where I felt alone and different, I did not consider all of these experiences until I was yet again walking into a new environment in 2018. When I entered graduate school at SVA, I scanned the room on my first day and thought ... “here we go, again.”
We Just Didn’t Have Enough Applicants
After researching, reading, and considering all of the variables, I was confident in my decision to accept admission to the School of Visual Arts. That confidence has not necessarily changed, but it has been challenged since joining the program. On my first day of orientation, I was overjoyed at the prospect of diversity that was assured to me prior to arriving. Yet upon my arrival my heart sank once I realized that, although the room was full of people, I was again, the only Black person. Thoughts began to roar in my head:
How many students are here?
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one?
Is ANYbody black, or am I really the...?
Damn, I guess this is it.
Shit.
I told myself to take it all in and observe all I could. I told myself to fit in best that I could; to not make a big deal of it; to not even mention it. And then the conversations started. I was confronted with microaggressions. We were educated on “American” racial slurs. Surprisingly, the only example given was the word “Nigger”, regardless of the fact that various other marginalized groups were subject to derogatory slurs that could have been mentioned as well. Subsequently, I was pulled aside, and asked by a professor, if I would be bothered by another student referring to their project as ‘black’ would bother me. Before I had the opportunity to respond, I was told I should forgive the theoretical student and understand that there were cultural differences. I should note here that this put the onus on me rather than sharing responsibility with another student. It placed an emphasis on my capacity to forgive, rather than another student being tasked with the responsibility of learning from one's own error. My true breaking point came when the topic of race was brought up to me in conversation within my own studio. A figure of authority asked me about my thoughts on the program and if I noticed that I was the only African-American in the year. Of course I did. After expressing a few of my thoughts and concerns, at the end of the encounter, I was told that there were “just not enough applicants this year to….” and that, I should know that the school is “very diverse.” My response, “Ok.”
Diversity Does Not Mean Non-White
In response to these agressions at SVA, I rebelled. I began to isolate myself; I withdrew mentally from classes, I refused to participate, or, to give my opinion on certain topics if they had anything to do with Black-Americans or Black women. Having previously gone through depression and extreme anxiety, I sought therapy because I knew that my behavior was counterproductive. Therapy was not only cathartic, but it also helped me to realize the connections between daily indirect racial microaggressions and my behavior. Additionally, it made me realize that I was lonely, and alienated. It was an “I am literally the only person in the room with hair texture and this skin color” lonely. It was an “I’m representing an entire race of people” lonely. The pressure I felt was a, “how I am perceived matters” pressure. I also had imposter syndrome. Imposters syndrome is the inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills. I felt that I did not belong. I felt that the reasons for me being in this space were not because of skills or ideas, but because the need to have at least one here. They needed to meet a quota.
“If our magic is our liberation then our liberation is our narrative” - LeCreshia Lala Robinson
The moment I understood that my anger and fear were disrupting my creativity, was when I decided that I needed some type of self-liberation. The first steps in this process were an examination of myself, my behavior and my body. I started to recontextualize my body to empower it with the agency it deserves. Performative movements, walks, conversations, journaling and dancing painted brushes across the canvas were where I eventually found solace and perseverance and landed on my final project at the School of Visual Arts.
Thesis
The first performance piece from my thesis is titled, Holding Space, 2019. It is my attempt to unlearn the negative feelings I had experienced because of my race and gender. I unlearned the shrinking of myself, which was due to a fear of being “too large” and “too threatening” to those around me. It was a fear of speaking out, and being labeled ‘angry’ for calling out microaggressive behavior. It was a fear of being “too intimidating” because I asked someone not to touch my hair. Through a public performance on sidewalks of the Flatiron district in New York City, which was inspired by the #DontMoveOffTheSidewalkChallenge, an article by writer Hanna Drake, I was moved to take the challenge and walk down the sidewalk without apology. My exceptions were shifting only for children and older people. This article resonated with me as an artist, because I saw so many similarities in Drake’s experiences as my own. Her work on social change, feminism, and race relate to the many topics within my work. This international challenge sat with me after I experienced an incident almost exactly like one she describes in the article. Her call to Black Women and People of Color “to be aware of your body in spaces and not move for a White person or make any apologies for physically occupying any space” forced me to further consider my body in a new context on the sidewalk. The focus to empower oneself and reflect on small decisions inspired me to create this piece to speak to the subconscious and encourage dialogue including psychoanalytical reasoning behind why Black women, like myself, move the way we do.
In making this work, I thought about all of the times that I was overly apologetic and fearfully aware of my body as a black woman. I adorned a bright yellow sweater on top of a flowy red-orange dress, black combat boots and a single braid that stretched nearly eight feet long to trail behind me on the ground as I passed. The braid was woven with a strip of clothing from each of my five immediate family members, a symbolic nod to the power of my body as Ii walked with the wisdom of my family through the historic caring ritual of hair braiding at my back. Holding Space can be retroactively viewed in a three minute video documentation, photographic prints, and the garments that were worn in the performance displayed in an installation.
The first painting in this project is titled, Now What, 2020. It is sixty inches in height for the specific reason of exaggerating my own natural height in real space while hanging on a wall. It is of a nude woman with ivory black skin standing assertively with arms rested at her sides. Her head tilts to the right as she gazes blankly down at the viewer. Her hair is in one long braid extending to the bottom of the image and off the canvas. Around her are fluorescent magenta flower and plant outlines both in the foreground and background floating on top of a cool grey scenery. Upon further investigation into her body, one can see text written on her left forearm that reads, “Wildest Dreams”. A short from the phrase, “I Am My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams” coined by artist Brandan “BMike” Odums in 2014. I painted the figure in this way for the woman to appear vulnerable, but not afraid, confrontational, but non-threatening. I created this composition to communicate agency, authority, strength, confidence and defiance as a continuation of the sidewalk challenge.
The second performance of this final project is titled, Mama Always Told Me It Would Be Alright, 2020. It was inspired by a song from pop singer Lizzo called Coconut Oil. The song is an ode to self-exploration, self-love and self-realization. Lizzo is reminding herself that things will be ok as she reflects on phrases learned from growing up. This song also relates to a comfort that I learned from my mother. In moments when I need to self-soothe, I hum. In reflecting upon the times that I have given myself permission to mentally decompress, music has always been a major part of that practice. It has been a way for me to cultivate an environment that felt familiar, even when no other physical space felt that way.
“Don't worry 'bout the small things, I know I can do all things, Mama always told me it would be alright” - Lizzo
In the frame of the performance, all the audience sees is me looking out of the frame into what one can only assume is a mirror. I sit in front of a teal backdrop, wearing an emerald green wrap tied as a dress in a traditional African tie technique that I learned during my “Rights of Passage,” a coming of age ritual that happened when I was seventeen. Without ever making eye contact with the camera, I first begin to observe my face. I see my nose, cheeks, skin, eyes, chin, and all of that is looking back at me in my reflection. I reach off camera, take a scoop of coconut oil into my palm and place it on my face. I begin rubbing it into my skin, covering my entire face until the oil is no longer visible. I then reach again and place the oil in my hair, which is cornrowed straight to the back of my head, I rub it in, through and around my hair. Finally, I rub the oil into my neck, shoulders and back. This act of care is something I do often. I was moved to do this performance, because I needed a balance. Different from Holding Space where I inserted myself into a public space, which allowed my body to engage in confrontation and people in an environment, I wanted to practice the other side of the rebellion and care for myself through common rituals such as humming and moisturising in the safety of my own domestic space.
The final component of this project is a polyptych painting titled, There, Here and Right Here, 2020. It is a surrealistic examination of a multiple experienced mental space in which I explore adverse dualities through use of color and figuration. In Kerry James Marshall’s work, and the depiction of the black figurative image evolving, the five panel assemblage holds four figures, all presumably women who adorn the same hairstyle that mirrors myself in the performances in this thesis project. The skin on these figures are either an all monochromatic black, or switching from actual ivory black, to midnight blue to hues of a sienna brown. The interior domestic scene of paint layers and washes depict the women evoking the room in different modalities and conversations. Right, is a woman sitting against the wall with her head down, wearing a grey Black Panther Party tee, her legs positioned open in a vulnerable, yet unfearful position. Center, a nude woman gazing directly at the viewer where the reflection in the mirror behind her shows the same woman gazing still, at the viewer. Next to her sitting upright is a black labrador calmy by her side. Her hair in a long, single braid stretching down and waving along the floor into the far left panel where there is another image showing only a pair of legs in motion. One leg brown, the other ivory black transforming back and forth between thought and contempt, questioning where the destination is and which portion is in reality. Suspending from the top of the canvas is a hand, holding a tote bag that reads, “Everything is Political When You’re Black”, a twist to the phrase “The Person is Political” which was popularly used in an essay of the same title, by Carol Hanisch in 1970, yet seen often in publications ranging from the 1940s throughout the 1970s by various feminist activist. The top left canvas holds a radiant sun image, a symbol and source of energy that I am drawn to. Finally, the bottom right corner is a round panel attached on top of the others, with an empty center and lined edges that in activation, holds the projected Mama performance looping in time. Engaged in the scenes of all five panels are plants, patterns and family photos. I consider this painting to be of many internal conversations about courage, value, love, responsibility and family, just as it is about conflict and fear.
Blackness Is A Living, Breathing, Human Experience Far Beyond Theory
The social anxiety that takes over one's body after the feeling of isolation over time, is a daunting one. Where do you go when you know your primary institutional learning space does not reflect the world you know you are to inhabit? Why do I have a white man entering my space to tell me about diversity? Without a sense of community, who do I talk to about the constant deaths of innocent people who look like me to the hands of police? When no one in the room knows who Trayvon Martin was, or Botham Jean, or Atatianna Jefferson? For a person of color, that solidarity is invaluable. People don’t really like to talk about race, but it’s there, hovering, always, along with conversations on politics and socio economic systems that affect each of us daily. So what then to those whose skin hue/color/tone is a political issue in and of itself?
After thinking about that little girl who would light up with excitement when another black kid came into her classroom, and about the teenager who was once referred to as a token, to again being an adult in an environment where there is often no representation of oneself reflected back. I think about how blackness extends beyond theory. It is a living, breathing, human experience full of multiplicity and dynamic intersections. Being a woman, then a person of color/black person/oppressed being/marginalized person/ ethnic minority. What does it mean to occupy a space that is both black and woman? When the mental exhaustion then turns to a physical exhaustion? We just must die exhausted?
Where are all the Black people?
The biggest issue that plagues not only MFA programs, but higher education institutions at large, is a lack of diversity and/or inclusion. Artist Torkwase Dyson addresses the navigation of black and brown bodies in spatial compositions as a means of self-liberation. I look to this theory when I Insert myself into a busy city sidewalk like in Holding Space, 2019. I recontextualize my personal space as a way to examine a ritualistic act of care as in Mama Always Told Me, 2020, and then depicting black figures occupying both regular and magical surreal spaces in There, Here and Right Here, 2020. All of these works in my final project have helped me find my sense of liberation. It is important for me to dissect my experiences and heal as I begin to move outside of this MFA program. I want to be clear, the lack of true diversity in various types of institutions has a long history beyond SVA, and far beyond New York City. An acknowledgement to our experience is appreciated, but please do not feel sorry for us. My intention to speak on my experience is to not ask for sympathy or to complain, but simply bring to your attention the fact that situations such as mine, happen far too often and have for far too long, yet continue. This institution and others alike, are a part of a larger societal condition that exists outside of us all. My exhaustion came from hoping things were to be different, yet quickly realizing they were not.
Why am I the only one here?
Am I truly the only one?
How am I here, again?
Where are all the black and brown people?
Of course, I’m angry.
Is my anger really a bad thing?
… No?
No, it’s not?
It’s not.
References
Allen, Jayne. (2018). Black Girls Must Die Exhausted. Los Angeles, California.
Quality Black Books.
Drake, Hannah. (2018). Do Not Move Off The Sidewalk Challenge: Holding Your Space in A White World. Retrieved from https://writesomeshit.com.
Robinson, LeCreshia Lala. (2018). To Take Up Space. Five Nineteen Created.
Reed, Ricky, Lil’ Aaron and Jefferson, Melissa. (2016). Coconut Oil. Coconut Oil EP,
2016. Elysian Park, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Napikoski, Linda. "The Personal Is Political." ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020,
https://thoughtco.com.
Mama Always Told Me It’ll Be Alright, 2020
Reflecting on the times that I have given myself permission to mentally decompress, music has always been a major part of that practice.
It has been a way for me to cultivate an environment that felt familiar when no other physical space has.
In moments when I need to self-soothe,
I hum.
A comfort I learned from my mother.
My mother, who is a preacher
and singer,
would hum while cooking, while cleaning, while rocking in a chair,
while rubbing my back,
just
humming and singing.
Humming everything from gospel
to Negro spirituals.
Thinking about these memories that reach down to the center of my soul and feel
SO much like home,
I can find liberation from this world knowing that
as a
black
woman,
in this exact moment,
I don't have to be “strong” or on the front lines or screaming or shouting
…or crying.
I can just be me.
I can sit with this jar of coconut oil and I can rebell,
silently,
in this moment.
“Don't worry 'bout the small things,
I know I can do all things,
Mama always told me it would be alright”*
* “Coconut Oil by Lizzo”