lorna simpson

Danielle heads to Somerset House in London to speak with Aindrea Emelife, the Nigerian-British curator and art historian. Specialising in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation, her writing includes the book A Brief History of Protest Art, and in 2021, she was appointed to the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm. She is currently Curator of Modern and Contemporary at the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), in Edo State, Nigeria. This summer she has curated an exhibition at Somerset House in London called Black Venus, which brings together the work of 18 Black women and non-binary artists to explore the othering, fetishisation and reclamation of narratives around Black femininity. The exhibition examines the complex narratives of Black womanhood through the influences of three perceived archetypes: the Hottentot Venus, the Sable Venus, and the Jezebel, and reframes stereotypical notions of black womanhood through the work of contemporary artists including Sonia Boyce, Carrie Mae Weems, Amber Pinkerton and Lorna Simpson. Aindrea talks about how she became interested in the history of art, and why she felt this was an important theme to address. 

https://paulineboty.org/

Gazelli Art House

monomediafilms.london

Jasmine Clarke is a 25-year-old photographer born (and based) in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Bard College in 2018 with a BA in Photography. Inspired by the surreal qualities of our waking world, her images play with the tension between fiction and reality. Her images have been shown at Howard Greenberg Gallery in Manhattan and are currently on view at Photoville in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Photo Vogue Festival in Milan, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.

 When I look in the mirror, I want to believe that what I am seeing is an extension of myself even though I know that it isn’t. I’m seeing a reflection (an illusion) of me and my world. I can never quite trust a mirror. 

 A picture creates a similar false sense of reality. The nature of photography tells us that what we are seeing is true, but it’s not. It is a selective truth, or even a fiction.

One night in Jamaica, as my father and I drove through the mountains, he described a recurring dream: he is in his hometown, Saint Mary's, at a certain winding road that’s shaped like an N, trying to catch the bus. He misses it and has to run up the mountain through the bush and slide down the other side to catch it. This is his only dream set in Jamaica. He told me as we approached the N. I listened while chewing on my sugar cane. It’s strange hearing about a dreamscape while physically going through it—like déjà vu. 

I feel this sense of familiarity driving through my father’s dream. But what’s more overwhelming is the sensation of jamais vu: foreignness in what should be known. The moon you see, the air you breathe, and the flowers you smell are all suddenly unfamiliar. You’ve moved, traveled—maybe even transcended—although you don’t know to where. You look in the mirror and see yourself, but can’t be sure that it’s the same reflection you saw yesterday.

This is why I photograph: to capture a trace of the unexplainable. My pictures are where dreams meet the physical world and earthly things take on higher meaning. I search for the uncanny. I uncover what is hidden. An obscured face, a wet flower, a dark shadow.

http://jasmine-clarke.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jasmineclarke0/?hl=en

https://www.bard.edu/news/guardian-spotlights-work-by-grad-jasmine-clarke-18-in-photo-vogue-2020-11-10

https://www.vogue.it/fotografia/article/photo-vogue-festival-2020-all-in-this-together-30-photographers-exhibition

https://photoville.nyc/the-lit-list-2020-photographers-to-watch-exhibit-hire/

https://www.blueskygallery.org/upcoming-exhibitions

https://www.photographersofcolor.org/

https://twitter.com/photogsofcolor

https://www.instagram.com/photogsofcolor/?hl=en

https://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/art/

https://www.instagram.com/uarkart/?hl=en