In the arena of fresh artistic movements, people of color have been taking on the challenge of, well, challenging the status quo of keeping black and brown skin out of the public sphere. Film curating platform Sweety’s has asserted that they will support work by people of color who otherwise may not get recognized for their talents and are unafraid of “not catering to whiteness, non-diplomacy, self-centering, telling the truth, color, trolling, [and] calling out.” Talk about shaking things up.
The Black Radical Imagination touring film series, shown recently at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), has worked hand-in-hand with Sweety’s to bring an exclusive focus to black voices in film. The series consists of visual shorts exploring, as the distributed program declares, “new stories within the Diaspora, [where] each artist contributes their own vision of post-modern society through the state of current black culture.” Why blacks in particular? In a panel discussion after the film shorts with curators and film-makers, curator Erin Christovale stated simply that the title of the series was to let black people know that this space is for them, that they are welcome and celebrated.
Terence Nance, part of the panel and director of “Swimming in Your Skin Again,” discussed the meaning of what it means to be part of the Diaspora.
“Blackness is an extension of African-ness—inescapable. You can’t just get away from it. Even white people can’t get away from it. It’s you. And any expression of yourself and your culture will be connected to the continent and all of the Diaspora inherently,” he said.
Each of the interviewed panelists—Nance, Christovale, and curator and film-maker Amir George—embodied their sense of identity as being foundational to their art. In black musicians, writers, and artists like Stevie Wonder, Lorraine Hansberry, and SWV, the artists witnessed people like them creating a space for themselves. During the Q & A, the panel stressed the importance of this for young black children.
“I think a lot of intentionality has to go into building an audience of people that have been marginalized and cut out of the system. As a young black person from a black community from the South, I was one of those people. Stuff did not come across my plate until it was taken to me directly,” Nance said.
“I was disinterested in movies until I got to college because what I understood of movies had no relationship to what I wanted to do. There has to be some planning how on a large scale program like this can be compulsory in those marginalized communities so that when those kids grow up, they are still part of the audience.”
The Black Radical Imagination team work to make film a viable art choice in communities like Dorchester, where children of color may not see such art forms as potential gateways of expression for themselves. In conscious efforts by artists, space is slowly being created for black youth to explore the possibilities of looking at their lives through film.
For example, many of the films featured in the series pull from an artistic movement from the ‘90s known as Afrofuturism. Although the term hasn’t made it into any dictionaries just yet, Wikipedia defines the aesthetic as blending science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magical realism to examine the experiences of the African Diaspora. The shorts reflect the brilliant patterns, costumes, colors, and concepts that make up Afrofuturism as vehicles for addressing the image of the matriarch, targeting of black communities, migration, and so on.
One especially poignant short, for example, was “Crow Requiem” by Cauleen Smith. Smith makes a spectacular comparison between a population of migratory crows in Syracuse, New York and black communities. The crows are regularly harassed and shot at, as demonstrated by setting the camera to be looking at the birds through the viewfinder of a gun. Another creative short, “An Ecstatic Experience” by Ja’Tovia Gary, features a series of black women being interviewed about their experiences with slavery. The clips are enhanced with rhythmic line drawings surrounding the women, symbolizing the energy one feels when listening to the cadences of their recounts.
While the series seeks to celebrate blackness and people of color, the panel freely examined several aspects of privilege and oppression.
“It’s dangerous for people to get boxed in to only be defined by one thing, especially for people of color…Some artists who are black do not like to be called black artists, and I think I’m starting to understand that bigger conversation about identity. Those identities can shape people’s creativity,” Christovale said.
To learn about other events going on at the ICA, visit icaboston.org. Don’t forget that students get in for free on Thursdays!