INVIOLABLE - JOY as a form of RESISTANCE
In the past year we have become more aware of the staggering volume of imagery of Black suffering. Black people are displayed suffering throughout all types of media - from news to the visual arts and everything in between. We have witnessed indifference to issues such as the higher rate of missing Black children, to Black men being gunned down by white perpetrators execution-style in the streets. Black women (daughters, sisters, mothers and wives) are seen in unbearable pain yet standing defiantly in front of the press, calling for liberty, justice and/or equality. Black trauma has become far too normal.
I choose to create art that demonstrates that, despite all odds, Black people are not just fighting and surviving, but are also thriving and happy. The issues suffered by our communities under a white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, and whose repercussions are felt most intolerably (whilst still retaining life) by Black women, do not define us. Constant struggle, pain and sorrow are afflictions but not our identity.
“pessimism is a tool of white oppression” - Fredrick Douglas
In this body of work, I wanted to respond to Mei Ling Malone’s assertion that “Black joy is an act of resistance. The whole idea of oppression is to keep people down. So when people continue to shine and live fully, it is resistance in the context of our white supremacist world.” I also wanted to focus on Black Joy in the context of Black women, their identity and resistance in the current socio-political climate.
Black women are inviolable because of the support, understanding, camaraderie and joy offered to them by other Black women. We are able to stand strong not because of some unexplained innate strength that is a result of our race, but because we commune and pour into each other the rivers of light.
Black women are full of nuance, creativity and joy. We draw from a light source that can never be rationally comprehended. Black women are joy and that is what makes them inviolable.