MahlÕt S A N S O S A
“bila aibu • history has a way of reminding us that, in another life, we could have killed them all.. • somos tudo”
performance photography (stills from video installation/durational performance – location: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)
12 x 16 in. | ask for price
The pulse of Brazil, Cuba, Cabo Verde and Mozambique, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the island nation of Zanzibar, all share allegiance through the bloodlines of my Mother, my Mother’s Mother, my Father’s Mother, and me. This work is a testament to the collectivity of our existence, resistance, assimilation and struggle, the literal and figurative movement we possess, and do not possess, locally, globally. A confrontation of society’s burdens and history’s lies.
The cross in this work represents the dualities within the rape, genocide and destruction of colonization of Africa through Christianity’s missions and missionaries. The red pump symbolizes both the expectations of the modern day woman and her toil, as well as the continuous theft of natural and precious resources from Africa that fuel and sustain this continent’s economy today. The cultural aesthetics of Black Womanhood can be felt around the world: poor, queer, [dis]abled and futuristically sublime.
This year indeed marks the 100th year of the white woman’s right to vote, as widespread racism and enduring inequality from within the ranks of the women’s suffrage movement kept Black Women suppressed from ballot boxes by any means: rape, intimidation, violence. Not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were Black Women officially allowed to vote, as white southern support of women’s suffrage only existed so long as racist/supremacist racism lines were upheld.
The work is an ode to Black America, to the African Diaspora globally, to the Women that made their own way, yesterday, today, and surly tomorrow.
© MahlÕt S A N S O S A