I took the opportunity with this piece to create a tribute to Marisa Williamson’s @unsettlinggrounds project, as well as exploring the themes of the show such as play, escape and “objects and tools that Black and Brown people have used… to protect and serve themselves and those they love.”
What I came up with was my take on the curiosity cabinet, or curio cabinet. Curio cabinets were often used as humble bragging decor for elite travelers during the age of exploration and into the enlightenment. Sacred artifacts were traded or plundered from their places of origin, often to be displayed as novelty and a means of elevating the owners cultural capital. Removed from the context of their origins and often hidden away in the private study’s of aristocratic society, these objects became fetishized and stripped of their full cultural meanings. Silenced by the master’s ownership over them.
As a way of critiquing the long standing practice of plundering and misrepresenting artifacts under the guise of ‘enlightenment and exploration,’ I created my own curio cabinet with an alternate ending. I wanted to celebrate the codified language that prisoners creatively produce in order to survive. Like the bees, working together to ensure the health of the hive, minorities and the disenfranchised have found means to communicate with each other despite prohibitions like reading and writing, instead speaking through art, song and dance. So I decided to draw a simple map that is only visible by using a black light. The dotted ‘bee line’ leads ones eye to four numbers. Like many escape rooms, four numbers are typically used for a lock combination somewhere in the puzzle. In this case, the numbers ‘1831’ allude to a coming rebellion (see Nat Turner).
18x24.” Wood, bees wax, loom spool, steel sundial, tamborine, one squash seed, one corn seed, one pea seed, resin display armitures, paper postcards. 2024
Filed Under: 2024, Curio Cabinet, Critical Fabulation, Artifacts
What I came up with was my take on the curiosity cabinet, or curio cabinet. Curio cabinets were often used as humble bragging decor for elite travelers during the age of exploration and into the enlightenment. Sacred artifacts were traded or plundered from their places of origin, often to be displayed as novelty and a means of elevating the owners cultural capital. Removed from the context of their origins and often hidden away in the private study’s of aristocratic society, these objects became fetishized and stripped of their full cultural meanings. Silenced by the master’s ownership over them.
As a way of critiquing the long standing practice of plundering and misrepresenting artifacts under the guise of ‘enlightenment and exploration,’ I created my own curio cabinet with an alternate ending. I wanted to celebrate the codified language that prisoners creatively produce in order to survive. Like the bees, working together to ensure the health of the hive, minorities and the disenfranchised have found means to communicate with each other despite prohibitions like reading and writing, instead speaking through art, song and dance. So I decided to draw a simple map that is only visible by using a black light. The dotted ‘bee line’ leads ones eye to four numbers. Like many escape rooms, four numbers are typically used for a lock combination somewhere in the puzzle. In this case, the numbers ‘1831’ allude to a coming rebellion (see Nat Turner).
18x24.” Wood, bees wax, loom spool, steel sundial, tamborine, one squash seed, one corn seed, one pea seed, resin display armitures, paper postcards. 2024
Filed Under: 2024, Curio Cabinet, Critical Fabulation, Artifacts