2021
8x10 Inches
58 Pages
Presented in the First Edition Photo book show, Ryerson University, School of Image Arts, Toronto
Winner of First Edition Photo book Purchase Award, X University Special Collections Library
The Black Arts Centre: Capture Photography Festival - Surrey, BC
Framed Excerpts shown at "Family First" Curated by Hafiz Akinlusi
March 28 - June 27, 2024
Tina M. Campt writes that the practice of refusal is a striving to create possibility in the face of negation. Mark making is the simple action of producing marks on a surface. Campt also asks “How do we engage a contemporary visual archive of blackness that is saturated by the proliferation and mass circulation of images of violence, anti-blackness, and premature death?” and I answer: by expanding the archive and balancing the scales, mark making on a grand scale, scoring the earth where we stand.
I started this project as a reflexive exercise in mark making. In some households, the passage of time is measured by height, or more specifically, the distance between one notch and the next on the threshold between two rooms. It is a popular image: a child with their back against the doorframe and a parent scratching a line just above their heads. This was meant to be my first notch, the starting line from which I would trace my mother and my relationship. Stefano Harney & Fred Moten write: “Art is meant to work as a ceremony to conjure a vision of how we live together” and I was building the monument with which we would conduct this ceremony. With each image taken, a moment in time was suspended, and sometimes later collaged to further animate snapshots of our lives. Singularities linked together to form a chain, flashes in the night to form constellations.
It was an exciting idea, I was only sorry I had not started sooner; I was 21 at the time which meant I had missed out on 21 years of opportunity. What I had not noticed, though, were all the marks that had come before mine. I am participating in the continued construction of the photographic canon, expanding the black visual lexicon. Monuments are open celebrations, their power lies in their ability to evoke. Looking is a way to connect the past and the future; every glance reignites a moment in our personal and collective history. Looking is also a form of intervention, your gaze intercepts the meaning the artist imparts, transforms it and replaces it on the artwork. Sharing this moment in time between me and my mother, opens our relationship to interpretation, projection, and self-insertion. Our life as it was at that time now belongs to you, or rather, we share it and carry it with us into the future. Meanings may fade, but still their symbols remain and monuments do not fall after their memory has lapsed; they stand tall as a testament to our will to be remembered.
