Expressive connections
A Painting, a Poem and Some Reflections on the importance of Community and Creolization in a Cape Slave Society
Big Up Yourself
The overall theme of this artpiece is of using past injustices to fuel present aspirations. This means that as humans we can do more than simply overcome: we can use past injustices to actively fuel our present day ambitions.
This was inspired by my honours thesis on slavery, which looked at how senses of community helped slaves, to a certain extent, overcome the institution of slavery that they found themselves in. This artwork has therefore taken this theme of overcoming to the present day, where you can see my friend, Tylah Biggs, a descendant of Cape slaves, thriving with chains that he himself bought.
Amongst all this overcoming, however, I have also acknowledged the continued influence of slavery, firstly by linking the overcoming of slavery to slavery, as well as highlighting its continued prevalence in that descendants cannot be completely sure of their real names, as the stripping of names was part of the enslavement process, hence the X's scattered across the artpiece. This was inspired by Malcolm X, who can be seen to form the backdrop of this artpiece.
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