Lingua Franca
Black Spirit Speaks in Common Tongues
Idea Lab, Art Galleries for Black Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Part of the Tilting Axis 2018 Fellowship
Using Haitian Vodou flags as a point of departure, Lingua Franca is a look at the way that African spiritual cultural retention presents in artwork across the Black diaspora. Vodou, Obeah, African American Spirituals, and colonial Christian histories, across the Black Atlantic, share more in common than the differences that make them so unique - and so too do the people with a shared history.
Lingua Franca:
Black Spirit Speaks in Common Tongues
This exhibition is an invocation, a summoning, and a celebration of spirit. What is it to draw a sigil in memory that even the waters of the Atlantic couldn’t break? Or to conjure the loving wisdom of a great-to-the-tenth grandmother at an altar? The objects displayed here draw upon African ancestral knowledge (both literal and metaphorical), on rituals of unbreakable collective spirit and culture that are the common tongue of the Black Atlantic experience. They express a Black lingua franca.
Using Haitian Vodou flags as a point of departure, these works from the Christian Green Collection seek not to explain, but to summon. As Vodou practitioners shift from drawing Veve symbols for spirits in chalk to sewing them in sequined flags held aloft, so too do we find different means of speaking our rituals and spirituals.
Through the work of artists across the Black Diaspora, we see investigations into Black spirituality across languages, countries, the Atlantic Ocean, and time itself. We see roots explored on canvas, paper, and fabric. African spiritual practices, especially given their survival of slavery in the Americas and Caribbean, stand as both a beacon of hope and act of resistance.
History can be erased or rewritten, and its access can be cut off from those who need it most—but spirit, magic, or any of its many names, cannot be written out of genetic code, out of the nature of being. The differing practices of Yoruba Orishas, Louisiana Voodoo, Haitian Vodou Lwa, and Obeah healers are not divisive, but rather add depth to the greater story of the Black spiritual imaginary.
These works of art and heart, which may seem disparate in their solitude, together form a cacophonous chorus, sung in the many tongues of our shared history.
Tilting Axis Fellowship 2018-19
About
Tilting Axis is an arts platform for, from, across, and through the Caribbean. It is a call to action to rethink the position and conditions of contemporary art practices in the region. Its perspective, informed by artist-led initiatives within the archipelago, recognises this space as central rather than peripheral and is fed by multi-generational voices.
Vision
To build support systems which sustain contemporary art practitioners in the region, and serves as a catalyst for creative projects and collaborations.
Tilting Axis was co-founded in 2014 by Annalee Davis of The Fresh Milk Art Platform and Holly Bynoe of ARC Magazine. From its inception, Tilting Axis has grounded its concerns in the Caribbean as a part of a wider creative ecology, and the health, evolution and advancement, a primary objective of its annual meetings held inside and outside of the region.
Fellowship
One of the practical outcomes of the annual convenings has been the establishment of a series of curatorial fellowships for Caribbean-based practitioners to access professional development opportunities while broadening their networks. Partners have included the British Council, Mother Tongue, CCA Glasgow, St. Andrews College, Art Galleries Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, Het Nieuwe Instituut and Kunstinstituut Melly both in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
The curatorial fellowship is a direct outcome of the Tilting Axis meetings in 2015 at Fresh Milk in Barbados and in 2016 at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Special thanks to all my mentors, advisors, colleagues, and chosen family who encouraged and/or found me over the duration of the fellowship. Holly Bynoe, Annalee Davis, Lise Ragbir, the generous hearts behind the Christian Green Collection, Dr. Cherise Smith, Susanna Finnell, Justice Madden, and the communities of Tilting Axis and the Art Galleries for Black Studies @ UT Austin.