This series was commissioned for and curated into Re:Konstriksyon for the Black and Brown Futures Symposium at UTSA on 2/22/18. I was tasked with exploring the mixed future - the afro-latinx future.
Xochipilli: translated as The Flower Prince, God of song, art, flowers, beauty, poetry, and patron of Homosexual Men and Male Prostitutes. I felt personally connected to this diety, and wanted to honor them by placing them into the present, and giving them life in our future. Xochipilli is surrounded by a throne of instruments - drum machines, electric violins, electric guitars, toy pianos, drum sets, flowers - all items taking the meaning of Xochipilli and contextualizing them in the future by means of art.
Regarding Afrofuturism: The makeup is created in an act of sankofa - an attempt to reach back towards my origins as a black individual who has had paths to my past erased through atrocities of history. I'm wearing non-traditional clothing to symbolize current styles of black young adults - which challenges gender norms and boldly mixes patterns. A piece from Ghana layered on a floral blouse both top a traditional white T-shirt and jeans.
Both dreds and the afro have been weaponized in society - and are used to keep individuals out of certain spaces. For this reason there have been generations forced into taking on unnatural hairstyles, so they can fit into work spaces and be accepted by those in positions of power. My dreds have been extended as a reference to an afro in a demand for space and as a way to confront the viewer with what is naturally beautiful.
Regarding Afrofuturism: The makeup is created in an act of sankofa - an attempt to reach back towards my origins as a black individual who has had paths to my past erased through atrocities of history. I'm wearing non-traditional clothing to symbolize current styles of black young adults - which challenges gender norms and boldly mixes patterns. A piece from Ghana layered on a floral blouse both top a traditional white T-shirt and jeans.
Both dreds and the afro have been weaponized in society - and are used to keep individuals out of certain spaces. For this reason there have been generations forced into taking on unnatural hairstyles, so they can fit into work spaces and be accepted by those in positions of power. My dreds have been extended as a reference to an afro in a demand for space and as a way to confront the viewer with what is naturally beautiful.
The mix of presence commanded by natural hair, reverence for a past I am not privileged to know through makeup, and playful mixing of cultures through attire symbolize my afrofuture as a space of freedom and acceptance - a place where we cannot be excluded, and where people understand that to exclude us is to exclude potent beauty.
