Two weeks today was the final event at the BALTIC of the Hinterlands Exhibition, Finnissage. It was a whole day of talks, presentations and performances by the artists involved in the group show. It was a promenade kind of affairs, as slowly we moved throughout the Hinterlands Exhibition, stopping and listening to each artist present something around their contribution; the thinking, the research, message of their pieces.
Of course I presentation around my endeavour to create an archive, and what goes into the process. The politics of it all. As what I am attempting to do is bring something into existence that hasn’t existed before. Make something visible. Like the whole creative process really.
Anyway, I got all messed up in the swing of it, going old school and wanting a hard copy of my presentation and went and got an earlier version of my talk printed instead. No on there would know the difference but I did, do. And there is going to be an archive of the day within the BALTIC. So I’ve attempted to put the record straight and give credit where credit is due for the thinkers, conversations and articles that I’ve drawn upon to influence and guide my thinking and actions so far.
At some point I’ll share the whole piece here. With a link to the video recording of the whole thing. I think what I presented was well received. The feedback has been positive.
All will feed into the continued task of building this archive.
I’ve been approached to contribute to a day long seminar at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland next month around my work. So this is another chance to trial things out as well as explore and extend this life long work really of archives, records and power.
Working on from my writings around Black bodies with/in nature, the BALTIC commission which turned out to be The Country Journal of a Blackwoman(Northumberland), became the workings and musings, thoughts and ideas of a composite Blackwoman throughout the generations and years of my matrilineage.
A multidisciplinary series exploring my matrilineage within the Northumberland landscape in order to (re)claim our individual and collective identities, this hybrid exhibition explored creating an archive centring the Black presence within a Conjuring Feminism, intergenerational dialogue, connecting to past, present and possible futures as an act of healing.
This palimpsest (re) creates the life of a composite Blackwoman through her mixed media visual country journal inviting the audience into the intimate connection and appreciation of the wise, wild Blackwoman coming out from Mother Nature. This is an in depth study of the Black female body with/in nature to (re)animate a matrilineal tradition connected to the landscape as well as producing evidence of Creatrix having always been part of my ancestral bloodline.
Making visible the hidden, through creating mythologies and challenging the colonial archives, this piece will makes sure that our story is told/ present. “We can rely on our own archival body,” Marcia Michael.
Taking the concept of palimpsest to its creative conclusion, I argue that we as human beings are metaphorical palimpsest. Each experience leaves an impression on our mind, body and soul. Overtime memories are processed and changed and become narrated stories. While traumas are never processed and are stuck. Stored in our bodies and psyches.
“Whether conscious of it or not, archivists are major players in the business of identity politics. Archivists appraise, collect, and preserve the props with which notions of identity are built. In turn, notions of identity are confirmed and justified as historical documents, which validate with all their authority as “evidence” the identity stories so built”
Cook, T & Schwartz, J.M 2002, Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory Archival Science 2, Kluwer Academic: p16.
