Made in “Painting Basics”, with help and support from Professor Matthew Watson and Flores.
- Photo Plan
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Currently named “Olde Common”
- “Our bodies are sites of liberation.” (Hersey)
- “We reclaim our bodies, our lives, our decision-making.” (Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists)
- “Difference must be centered as a site of resistance.” (Alarcón)
- “...the absence of Caliban’s woman as Caliban’s sexual reproductive mate functions to ontologically negate their progeny/population group, forcing this group to serve as the allegorical incarnation of ‘pure sensory nature’” (Wynter 362)
- During this semester, I – for the first time since becoming a Yale student – refused to take a camera photo. I did zero gigs, I renounced my lead photographer roles in student organizations, and created no photo pieces for myself. I wanted to give myself time to recover from the burnout I had previously suffered, as I knew I would want to make a strong return come spring time.
- The photo series I aspire to make is centered around my hometown of Atkinson, New Hampshire. According to census data, the town has a black population of 0.00%. This has been a place I have lived in for almost my whole life, and yet, on this formal government document, I am null. I do not exist. Of course, this is a bit hyperbolic. But I have not met a single other black person in my 17 years of Atkinson living and don’t like my chances of meeting one in the next year I will leave there before I move out on my own.
- As I only have a year left, I want to think about the legacy and memory I will leave on this town. When I went to register to vote for the first time this summer, I was helped by a lovely lady who, before I could walk out the door, cheerfully exclaimed “and welcome to Atkinson!” Others who had walked through the town hall building were met with familiar smiles and colloqialisms, as the population is only about 7,000 people. Whereas for me, I had never met any of these people before. Something like my 7,000th day in the town seemed like my first.
- I want to think about how others in Atkinson percieve and interact with me – whether it me riding my bike around the neighborhood to pick up mail from the gazebo as I wave to cars driving back from work or the bits of small talk I have with neighbors as I sit in the passenger seat of my dad’s car before driving of to school. I then want to take these scenes and layer asterisks on top of them – just like how I’ve done in this painting on the left. My experience and reflections on this town cannot be separated from the fact that I am one of one in this town – in fact, I might as well be one of none.
- This painting I have named for the time being as “Olde Common” serves as the compositional inspiration for what I hope to create soon. It is one of the things I am most proud of during this semester. For months I was telling friends and anyone else willing to hear my complaints that “Painting Basics” was the bane of my existence and a grave mistake. But I was able to create something really striking and jumpstart a photo project I am now fully prepared to seek my teeth into. This is just the start.