Art On My Mind Diasporic Landscapes

Di a s p ori c L a n d s c ap e s of L o n gin g

\VIe take hom e and langu ag e for g ran ted: rhey b eco me nature and th eir underlying assum pt ions recede into dog ma and o rt hodoxy. The exile knows t hat in a secular and cont inge nt world . hom es are a lways p rovisio oa l. Borders and barriers. wh ich enclose us within rhe safery o(f:'lm ili,lf territory, can also beco me prisons, and are ofte n d efended b eyo nd reason or necessit y, Ex;le s cross bo rders. bre ak barriers of th ou g ht and expe rience.

- Edward Said. RtfI~tIONJ 011 £Xilt

'Q,71/ F N I was a tiule g irl in rhe rura l Scu rh. we would so meti mes go (0 count ry churc hes . Travel ing dow n narrow, d ust y. un paved foods. past fields and f ields of crops and chewing tobacco , w e woul d nde inro a wi lde rness of nature. ar ri...e lare, and f er be welcomed imoa hot. crowd ed sanctuary fu ll of holiness and g race. To awak en a spi rit of ecsta tic reveri e. th e choir would sing th is so ng with a line that just mad e folks shout and cry out wit h joy, WI wou ld n't ta ke noth ing for m y journe y now." Thi s line affirmed a vision of life in which all experience. good and bad , e\'l:ryt hing that happened. cou ld reerospecrivel y be seen as a manifestation of d ivine desnny. It called on believers to lay claim ro an inclusive spirit of uncond it ional acceptance that would enable all of us to see ("'ery parh we had rs ken in life, whet he r chosen or nor. as a necessary one- preparing us for that return to a home we could only d ream abou t , Th e m ul rilayered vision of life's Jou rney celeb rated in this old- t ime b lack churc h song , where every hieof hisrory a nd expe rience 15 seen as esse ntial to the unfoldi ng of one's desti n)'. is rearr icula ted in t he artist ic practices of Carrie Mae Weems,

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Traditionally t rained in mainst ream art schools where there was lin le or no awareness of rhe WolY in which the politics of white supremacy shaped and informed academic pedagog ics of photographic practice, Weems made a conscious decision to work wirh black subiecrs. This choice preceded contt'mporary academic focus on decenredng \'('estern civilization, which necessa rily requi res that anennon shift from a cent ral concern wit h whitt' subjeces. Ironically, for the mosr parr, culruml criticism t hat calls for arrs of inrervenrion that would decemer rhe \'Vest rend to rep rivitege whiteness by investing in a politics of representation thar merely substitutes rhe cent ral imag e of colonizing oppressive wh iteness with that of a nell/I)' reclaimed radical whiteness port rayed as fibernrory. \'('h iteness t hen remains t he start ing po int for all prog ressive cultu ral journeying - that movem ent across borders which invites the world to take note, to pay at tenti on, ro give critical affirmation. The much ralked-abour d iscourseof pcstcoloniali ry is a critical lcca tion that, ironically, often maint ains white cultural hegemony. T he less well -recog nized d iscursive pract ices of anticoloni ali sm, on t he ot her hand , decenrer, interrogate, and di splace whiteness. T his d iscourse disrupt s accep ted ep istemo logi es to make room for an incl usive understand ing of radical sub jecriviry rhar allows recog nition and appreciation of the myriad ways indiv iduals from oppressed or marg inalized 8rouPS create opposi tional cultu ral srraeeg tes th at can be mean ing fully deployed by everyone. T his consrrucnve culrural app ropriation happens only as shifts in srend poine rake place, when t here is ongoing trnnsformarion of ways of seeins t hat sustain oppositional spheres of representation. T he work of Carrie Mae Weems visually eos ages a pol it ics of ant icolonialism . Cc ncrerely decenrering t he wh ite subject. she challenges viewers co shift their paradigms. Alth ough her work encourages us nor to see the black subject t hrough the totalizing lens of race, it is often di scussed as t houg h the sig n of racial d ifference is t he on ly relevant visual experience her images evoke. T his way of seeing scrivel y reuppr opria res th e work and reinscr ib es it wit h in t he domin ant cultu ral hegemony of West ern imper ialism and colon ialism. By choos ing to concentrate atten tion on b lack sub jects. Weems risks t his oversimp lificat ion of her art isti c p ractice. In her work, however, she constsrend y invites us 1'0 engage the black sub ject in ways t hat call attent ion to t he specificit y of race even as we eng age all emo t iona l landscape t hat challe ng es us to look beyond race and recogn ize th e multiple concerns represented . Unfortunatel y. the fail-

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ure to move beyond a convent ional pract ice of art cr it icism that consistenrl}' confines b lack artists w ithin a d iscourse th at is always and only about racial ot herness characterizes m uch crit ical writ ing abou t \'qttms's \lo'ork , Transform in g ways of seeing means rhar we learn to see race t hereby no long er act ing in com p licity whh a wh ite-su premacist aes rheric t hat would have us believe issues of color and race have no place in artist ic pract ices- without privileg ing it as the only relevant category of analysis. Carrie Mae Weems's phcroworks create a cartog raphy of experience wherein race. gender, and class ident ity conve rge, fuse, and mix SO as to d isnl pt and deconsuncr simple not ions of subject ivity. W h ile Weems's decision to concent rate on black subjects was a challenge (0 wh ite cu lt ural hegem on y, it s ig naled. more im po nand y. th e eme rgence of a lifelon g com mi t ment to recover and bring t o the foreground subj uga ted know ledge relating [0 African-Amer ican expe rience. Alth oug h W et'ffiS was ini ti ally capt ivated by mainstream documentary pboeography, lea rn ing fro m the work of photographers from He nri Carti e r- Bresso n to Roy DeC arava. she c rit ically e ng ages a p rocess of image ma king t hat fuses d ive rse cradie ions and engages mixed med ia, Early in her art istic developrnene, she was pa rt icularly inspired by DeCar· ave's visual repre se ntat ions of black sub jects t hat invert rhe do mi nant cuhure's aes t hetics, in which, informed by recisr thin king . blackness was iconog raph ically see n as II marker of ug liness, DeCa rava ende avored to refrerne th e blac k image w ithin a subv ersi ve po liti cs of representat ion that challenged the log ic of f3cist colonizat ion and dehumani zat ion. Moving a mong and w ith in the pu bl ic and p rivat e worl ds of poo r and working -class black expe rie nce . wh ich mainstream wh it e cu lt ure p erceived on ly as a locat ion of deprivati on and spiritual and emot ional "ug hness." Dt-Carava c rea ted images of b lack fol ks em bodying a spi ri t of abunda nce a nd plenty: he cl aimed blac kness as t he aest het ic space of ethereal bea ury, of persistent , unsupp ressed elegance and g race, Such work fits most nearly into the category that the crit ic Saidi ya Hart man identi fied as arti st ic practice aimed at "rescuing and recovering t he black subject" via a "crit icallabor of rhe positi ve. It is a resolutely counterhegemonic labor that has at its aim tilt:es tablishment of ceher srandards of aest hetic value and visual possibiliry. T he intention of the work is correcnv e represen rarien." Weems extended DeCa rav;a's legacy beyond the invest ment in creat ing posit ive images, Her images problemat izing black

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subjecriviry expend th e visual d iscursive field. Weem s's journey, beg inning with thi s "cricicallabor of the positive," is fundamental ly alt ered and rengured as her relation to the black image is tra nsformed by a politics of di slocati on . In her ea rly work. Wt'ems's percep t ion of black sub jecnv iey departed from a concern with the positive and refigured itself within a fi eld ofconcesranon. wherein identity is always Huid. always changin g . Weems is engaged in a process of border crossing, of living within a soc ial co nte xt of cul t ural hybr id it y. H er understa nd ing of black sub jectivi ty is informed by what Paul Gi lroy identified as "t he powerful effects of even tempora ry expe riences of exile, reloca t ion. and d ispla cement." Indeed , it is rhe effo n to recover subjugated knowledge wit hin the realm of visual repre sentat ion t hat brings Weems face co face wit h t he hm ira-

no ns of esscn nalisc consrruct ions of black ide nt ity. Contrary co critical di scussion that see s \Veems as laying clai m to an "authent ic" black expe rience. her explorative journeys of recovery and rerum merely expose how reality is d isron ed when a unitary representa tion ofblack subject ivity is retoscrtbed rathe r chan coraiscenely challenged. When Weems made the decision to focus on black su bjecrs-c-as she put it . to "d ig in m y own backyard-c- she was motiva ted by a long ing to restore know ledge. not by a desire to uphold an essentialist politi cs of representat ion. (A distinct ion mus t be made here between th e crit ical project that seeks to promo te a not ion of authent ic blackness and efforts to ~ec laim the past tha t are a ges t ure of cri tical resisrence and rernemb rance.) W hile Wttms drew on her family history in the series Famil)'Piaures IIl1d StoritJ. her narrati ve deflects any one-d imensional const ruct ion of these works as "posit ive" images dep loyed rc challenge racist stereotypes . She nor only named her location as that of the ou tsider who has journeyed away from family and comm unity of origi n to retu rn wit h new perspective s. she juxtaposed and cont rasted her memories of people with the present reality. Balancing image mak ing that com memorate s the past with the act of hig hlIg hting rhe ways in which th e meaning of this past is changed by interroga tions in the present, Weems celebrated what Roger Simon called "proce sse s of co llect ive remem brance." He expla ined: "Cent ral to these processes is a procedure with in which images and stories of a shared past are wove n togeth er with a person (or g roup's) feelings and comp rehension of their embod ied presence in time and space. These processes of remembrance arc orgsniaed and produced within pract ices of commernomrion which iniriate and structu re the relat ion berween a represenrauon of past events and that

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GIVE A BLACK PERSON?

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Carrie Mat U'l ttl1Js. \'(fhat are t hree t hi ngs you can 't givc a Black Man ? From lIN Aill"r Jok in smes , ! 98 7. Sill'tI' print. Editi()1f fJ! 3. 14//2" X 14'/2, .. COllrfuy of P. p.o.\v. Gal/try. PlxJl o!,''llpb byAdallJ Rtirb. conste llat ion of affect and informat ion wh ich define a stand point (rom which various people engage such representat ions."

Commemorat ion is cenrral to \'Vf'ems's artisric p racti ce. From ea rly work t hat focused on const ruct ing images and narratives cffa mitie s, she' moved into an exp lorat ion of th e journey from Africa to t he so-called

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New World . T bere she looked ac African-Ameri can ideas arhomt'. community, and nati on , parti cularly as exp ressed in vernacul ar, working -class cu lrure. Visually revisiting slavery, t he Middl e Passage. Reconst ruct ion. tht civil rights era, and on (0 mifiranr black power act ivism , Wttms has cr eated images t hat chan the passion of rebell ion and resist a nce. Com mem orar ive plates rem ind us of the nature of that journey. Sim on called this process "insurgent commemorat ion" that "arrernprs to consrrucr and engage represe nrad c ns th at rub rakeo-for-g raneed h ist ory ag ainst the grain so as ro revir al ize and rea roculaee what one sees as desirable a nd necess.u y for an ope n, just and life-sustain ing futu re." In rhe series A i ,,', Jolein. Weems used wit and sati re to exorcise the power of racist repre senra tion . Referencin g ractse iconog raph y, as well as h ighl ight ing folklore used ro pe rpe tu ate white supre macy in everyday life, rhar mak es th is iconog raphy ap pear matter of face, whil e ccocrasri og these images wit h narrarive sra reme nrs thai prcolemariee , W~ms decons rrucred these vnys of know ing . Throughout her work , she has relied on srrceegies of deconst ruct ion to c hallenge conve ntiona l pe rcepnoos created by our a rrachmem 10 fixed ~ys of looking that lead to blindspoes. In rbe insrallar ion a nd 22 M illiON Vtr,)' Tired a nd Very A ngry Ptoplt , W~ms creaeed an assemblage of carefu lly chosen poli tica l narra rivesc-the declarative confessions of working -class activists, the lyrical p ~ of the 1lQ\'e1 iSt-and placed them with spec ific images. No fixed. authentic black subject is represent ed in this piece. "The common bond is not race or shared histo ry bur, rathe r. an emoeicnal uni verse inhabited by indi vid uals com mitt ed rc ending dominat ion, oppression . and in just ice around rhe world ; who art lin ked toge the r across the bou ndaries of space, ti me. race, cult ure, nationality, and even life and deat h. by a shared com mit me nt to st ruggle. As th is installat ion makes clea r. rage again St injusti ce. as well as t he weariness that comes wirh prorraceed st ruggle . is nor the excl usive property of black peopl e. As the image of che g lobe sugg escs. it is present wherever oppression and exploirarion prevail in daily life. In th is insta llatio n, Weems laid claim to a di aspor ic vision of jou rneying in sea rch of freedo m and st rateg ies of resistance and fulfillment . She h:1S sta ked her clai m by inh ab it ing t he space of blac kness in t he Uni ted States. bUI also by refusi ng ro sta y in he r place and rejecting a narrow ident ity po li tics imposed by systems ofd omi nati on . The radi cal b lack subjec tivity mi rrored in this insta llation audac iously unites that parricu-

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Iarly With a universal transcendent emo tiona l land scap e wherein the desire to be free is t he t ie t hat binds and creates cont inuity in t he m idst of d iscont inu it y. \'(o' it h in t he emot ional land sca pe of t his work , rhe Sta IIIII/lih series. and the images of G,m?t II/lIud, Weems esta blished a commona lity of'Iong ing . of yearnin,g for connect ion, for home . Here home is not a place bu t a cond it ion - felt onl)' when there is freedom of movernenr and expre ssion . II is rhe seeking that is shared. nt' ms to Africa. Art iculati ng with satiric wit and contemplat ive sig nificance of t hat search in lX/tlJl Uiokil/gf or Af rictl. she problem an aed th is dream of exile and ret urn, of homecoming . She found in the Sea Islands African cu ltura l reremions that link blackne ss in the dicspora, that creare all unaginerive world where in Africa can be represented as present yet far away, as bot h real and myt hic. To disti ng uish this search for subj ugated knowledge from nostalg ic long ing for t he myt hical , parad isiacal horneland t hat is so often th e impena lise vision imposed by contemporary Afrocentric black neonat ionalism . \Veems presen ted ima ges of spec ific locations. She arran ged these si tes to compose a rit ual of sed uctio n th at evoke s an emotional con necocn berween Africans and African .Amt ri. cans, even if [h at common bo nd cannot alway s be documen ted with visual proof of African cult ural rcrem ions in t he United States. Her work ollcrs docurnenra ry "proof ' even as it tells us rhar th is is ult imately not as im pcrt ant as che ab iding sense of emot ional and spirirual connect ion that imperialism and colonialism have not bee n able to suppress. \Vithin a poht rcal cont ext of anticoloni al ism , Wttm ~ posiocns her work on Africa as a counrerhegemonic respon se to the \VeS[('rn cul tural imperialism t hat syste mat ically erases t hat conoecnon - fhat di espor ic bond - wh ich links all black people. To do t his she decem ers the Wt St b)' aba ndo n109 not ions that reason is the only way to ap prehend rbe universe. This se rves to promote alrernatrve means b)' which we can know what connects us to drsranr places. ro folks we have never seen but somehow recog nize in our hearts as kin. J ane Flax challenged prog ressive thinkers to resist investi ng "in t he primacy of reason ." to prevent it from occup)'ing "a privileged place within ou r sub ject ivity or political hope s." Wit h her images of African site s. Weems has insisted on riw aJs of comrnemorarion that can be understood only within t he coneexr of an opposi t ional wor ld view, wherein intuiti on, magi c, d ream lore are all

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Ceme IlInt WMft,J. Sea Island Si m s. 1992. Sih," print. EdlltlJ" D/ 10. 20"x

20. " C()JIrttJy 9/ P. P. O. \v. Galltr). Photographs by Adam Rruh. ac knowledged to be ways of know ing that enhance our experience of life. t hat sweeten the journey. When Weems looks to Africa, It IS to rediscover and remember an undocumen ted past even as she airnulraneoualy c reates a relat ionship forged m rhe cc ncrere dailiness of th e present. For example. in [ ~ Gri lIland series . cepnvny IS evoked by the depiction of spaces tha t COfl Ve)' a spi rit of con ram meer. A cultu ral genealogy of loss and abaodonmenr is recorded in t he words Wrtms sta cked on top of one another: "Co ngo. Ibo. Mend. e go. Togo. T hese markers of herit age. legacy, and locat ion In history nand in drrecr COntrast 10 rbose words t hat evoke d istocation, dis placement, dis me mberment: "G rabb ing . Snaect nng , Bhn k, And You Be Gone. \Vh ereas the S~l lsltJndJ series ma rks th e met-ring g round be tween Africa and America, t he Gork hland images articulate II decolonized po lit ics or resistan ce. Th ey represenr a retu rn that coume rs t he loss of t he Mid d le Passag e. th e rec overy lhal i made possible because or revolution and resrsraoce. chrcugh ongcmg anti colon ial sn ugg le. Wttms is not attempti ng ro creare an et hnographiCcartography to document dlas poric black connect ions. Her work does not" record a JOUrney to uneart h esse nR

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(Ial. aut hent ic black roots .even though it willl ikdy be critical I)' discussed and arrang ed by curators in a manner th at makes t his s ppropnanve reinscri pt ion poss ible. Weems is most concerned wit h ways such kn owledg e remakes and t ransforms contem pora ry radical black su bjec t ivity. A spi ri t of CDlUeSfation that eme rges with ehe Wml1..JJol!mgjorAfrica series exposes the way Western im perialism informs t he relat ionship of Afr ican -Americans to Africa. Yet t he fuilu re to embrace a prog ressive. ant icolonial sta ndpoim as th e perspect ive t hat rnighr enable everyone in the \Vle u , incl ud ing black folks, to see Africa di fferently in no way delegi rimizes the long ing to reru m [0 Africa as origin sit e. as locanoo of poss ible sp iritual renewal. The Africa Weem s visua lly repre sen ted in th e C orle Island series is bo t h a si te for msurg ern co rnrne mo rari ve remembrance and a conte mpo rary location chat must be engaged on its own rerrn s, in th e p resent . weems has cem raliaed a rchirecrura l images, link ing rradirional d .....elli ngs with mod ern space. In t he se images, Africa is bo rh fam ilia r ~Iand and locanoo ct Orberress. Funda men cally, it is a p lace th at awakens t he senses, enabling us to mo ve inrc a futu re empowe red by th e prevIously subjuga ted knowledge t hai we can noc al low reason ro overdc rerrnioe cors rruceions ctiden eiry and comm unity. As Bernard Tsch um i dec lared, we hnvenn expe r ience of space rime is reg istered in [he senses, in a wo rld beyond words: "Space is real for it seems 10 affect my senses long before my reason. The ma teriality of my bod y bo th coincides with and st rugg les wirh the ma teriality of space . My bod y carries in irselfspatial propernes. and spana l de eermi narions.. .. Unfolding aga inst the projections of reason, aga inst rhe Abso lute Truth , agai nst t he Pyramid , here is rhe Sensory Space , the Lebynnr h, th e Ho le . . . he re is whe re my body tries 10 redi sco ver in lost umry, ItS energies an d im pulse s , it'S rh ythms and its flux .- \'(fttms seeks such reu nion in her imaginarive engsgernem and reme mbrance of Africa past and present . H er visual q uest to recover subjugated knowl edge is fulfilled in a proce ss of jou rney ing t hat , as Mary Catherin e Bat eson proclaimed. makes learn ing a p rocess by which we come horne: "the proce ss of learni ng turns a st range con text int o a fami lia r one, and finalI)' inro a habnerton of mi nd and heart ... . Learn ing to know a co mmu nity or a land scape is a ho mecom ing. Crea t ing a vision of [hat comm unicyor landscap e is bomema kiog." !n her art practi ce, Wttms imag ires a diasporic land scape of 1000g ing , a cartog raphy of de sire wherein boundaries are marked only to be rraesg ressed , where t he exile retu rns home on ly ( 0 leave again,