"A Natural Language Search"

Artist Statement

​

“The law is public conscience.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence.” Mahatma Ghandi, Non-Violence in War and Peace

“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” Toni Morrison

The Title

The title refers to a type of legal search that can be conducted by non-legal professionals by  using one's own knowledge and spoken language as a research tool.  I like this title because it refers to construction of knowledge as a participatory practice rather than an authoritative and centralized practice. It also implies the inadequacy of our educational institutions to explore the history of how race and rights in our country have been defined and for what aims and for whom. I focus on the state of Michigan, specifically because that is where I grew up and now live and because it has been considered to be an abolitionist state. However,  contradictions to this philosophy are plentiful even to this day. On the other hand, many courageous individuals of all races have contributed to the defense of equal human rights while the struggle continues.

The Seed

Productive transformation in relation to painful, emotional, difficult topics occur when they are addressed from our authentic selves. In this work, my job as an artist was to bring myself to the subject and to reflect my experience back to the viewer through the process.

I was attracted to the case of John Punch of 1640, mentioned in the third podcast of “Seeing White” because it represents a beginning point. This case was the first even before we were the United States, in which court sentences were differentiated according to the race of the accused.

This case became the basis of my further research into laws that contributed to the continuous construction of legally racialized bodies. The case gave me a framework to understand the historical trajectory of thought on race in America. While learning about the logical structure of the legal system and its European origins, I had the idea to physically construct a backdrop to this story of economic, political and cultural colonization. By creating a visual interpretation of the legal decisions that are barely tangible in everyday life, we become aware of laws as responses to social conditions within the American project.

The Icon

In this piece, projecting the image of a bald eagle, a national symbol of freedom and democracy, suggests an entirely separate discussion about the phrase "natural and unalienable rights". The bird is seen in its natural environment rather than as a symbol atop a Roman standard of war, a flagpole or on a coin, and leads the viewer to ask, “What does it mean when the natural world becomes a stand in for an imported set of values?”

The Process

As evidence of my learning process, the materials become language; the white fabric- a page in a book, a blank slate which the early colonizers believed this land to be, the color of spirituality and of terrorist’s cloaks. The process of cutting and sewing fabric became a meditative space where my growing knowledge of this country’s legal history intersected with forgotten memories, observations and experiences of race throughout my life. It became a way to place individual lived experience on a national timeline. Each legal proceeding was an opportunity to reflect on the events that initiated them and how these events shape our national identities today.