BA (HONS) FINE ART DEGREE SHOW
Chelsea College of Art & Design
18 - 26 June 2010
Inscriptions
single-channel video installation, colour, sound, 8 min 49 sec
edition of 3 + 2 AP
Constructed as a monolithic structural video installation, the starting point for Inscriptions was black feminine practices. Using performative strategies, the piece documents a number of performances to examine black femininity, revealing ‘cracks in hegemonic black beauty’ (Tate, 2009). Specific issue is taken with hair alteration, drawing on continuing discourses with black beauty aesthetics, black stylization politics (Mercer, 1994), and black women’s search for white beauty as a consequence of racialization. The work engages with Judith Butler’s notion of gender performativity (Butler,1999), and builds on Shirley Anne Tate’s discussions on black beauty, which queries essentialisms and the making of black female subjectivities in the 21st century in the Black Atlantic diaspora.
Related Texts
Butler, J. (1999) Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity.
London: Routledge.
Mercer, K. (1994) Black Hair/Style Politics. In: Mercer, K. Welcome to the
Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. London: Routledge.
Tate, S. (2009) Black Beauty: Aesthetics, Stylization, Politics. Surrey: Ashgate.
