Posts tagged creating
finding and pambana
[re]claiming revolutionary musings
![Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe!!! I couldn’t believe the scale and detail and massive-ness of these visions. I went to the Brooklyn Museum over taking-day break (i’ve talked about the problematic nature and history of museums and my complicated love of them) to see Mickalene Thomas’ work. I’m sure that someone has written in better detail than I but goodness the [re]clamation of western art traditions, the centering of BLACK WOMEN and the story-telling, multiple ways of knowing and showing. It was really beautiful and impressive. Though I have no clue who has this much room in their house, it is now a goal of mine to have high ceilings. The colors, the rhinestones, the enamel, the paint the lightness the heaviness the many browns and thick lips and direct gaze and the fabulousness. Collage- like quilts- collecting little bits and gathering them as a new, vibrant whole. Obvious and subtle metaphor and umph. So cool.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mefwpkg4oH1qg9oqpo1_500.jpg)
Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe!!! I couldn’t believe the scale and detail and massive-ness of these visions. I went to the Brooklyn Museum over taking-day break (i’ve talked about the problematic nature and history of museums and my complicated love of them) to see Mickalene Thomas’ work. I’m sure that someone has written in better detail than I but goodness the [re]clamation of western art traditions, the centering of BLACK WOMEN and the story-telling, multiple ways of knowing and showing. It was really beautiful and impressive. Though I have no clue who has this much room in their house, it is now a goal of mine to have high ceilings. The colors, the rhinestones, the enamel, the paint the lightness the heaviness the many browns and thick lips and direct gaze and the fabulousness. Collage- like quilts- collecting little bits and gathering them as a new, vibrant whole. Obvious and subtle metaphor and umph. So cool.
“Nderedi” by SIMPHIWE DANA
I found this video years ago, and I’m still waiting for someone to give me the translation. :( This is a South African artist with amazing talents.
The concept of this video has been described on various websites/blogs:
“a sketch of a future africa in which the west never had a hand…looking at utopian ideas based on african philosophy”
“african futurism based on traditional african principles”
Could someone please give me the lyrics?
(Source: vulva-perigrination)
OUT IN AFRICA. South African Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.
Calling on All Silent Minorities
HEY
C’MON
COME OUT
WHEREVER YOU ARE
WE NEED TO HAVE THIS MEETING
AT THIS TREE
AIN’ EVEN BEEN
PLANTED
YET
by June Jordan
(Source: tiimkennedy)
After I got married and had a child, I started writing a poem called “Fragments from a Parable.” The goal of that long poem was to claim, to really wrestle my own language out of an enemy language. I felt at the time that English was completely the language of my enemy. This was coincident with my own Black Nationalist period- politically and culturally. I wanted to see what I could do, because no other language was gonna work for me in this country except some kind of English. So I worked on this poem for about eleven years. And at the end of writing it, I felt I could work with English and not feel that I was in some way participating in my own suicide. I still feel that English is the language of my enemy, and it is difficult, for sure, to work with it.
-June Jordan
from I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like by Rebecca Carroll pg. 145
Just recently I received an award from my prep school, Northfield Mt. Herman, and my classmates were telling me about a term paper I had done for biology on tissue culture written completely in iambic pantameter- so I know I had to have been intoxicated with words to do that. I don’t really remember doing that paper but my classmates did. So writing was something that became part of my basic identity. Obviously the biology teacher would have preferred to have the paper written in prose, and I didn’t really care, cause that wasn’t the way I was going to write it. I couldn’t have done the paper at all if I had had to write it in prose, it wouldn’t have been interesting to me.
-June Jordan
from I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like by Rebecca Carroll p144-145
