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Crushing the Code: Unknowing Southern Hospitality, 2019, sugar cast of pineapples, twine, wood plinth covered in cement, sonotube covered in cement, rod steel replica of an Antebellum hoop-skirt, ivory grosgrain ribbon, upholstery trim
This sculpture is a departure from my graduate research in decolonial theory and critical whiteness influenced by personal experiences. The work is specifically impacted by Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness of Being, Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Manu Vimalassery’s On Colonial Unknowing, Jennifer Tamayo’s The Gold Star Awards… A message from The Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo, and grant funded research opportunities in Alabama, New Orleans, and Ghana.
This ephemeral sculpture combines the architectural influences of confederate monuments, the armature of an Antebellum hoop-skirt, the material history of sugar, and the adopted symbol of Southern Hospitality - the pineapple (which was placed atop plantation homes as an invitation to wealthy white folks to stay at the plantation.) The sculpture illustrates the complex and often coded visual culture that sustains white supremacist ideologies. The sculpture’s ephemerality, exposes the fragility of its structural components and resists adding to the canon of colonial monuments. The sculpture imagines the degradation of colonial domination - as the pressure of the heat and humidity from the spotlight melt the sugar pineapples throughout the duration of the exhibition. Though the catalyst is the spotlight, the skirt appears to be decomposing on its own. In this way, the skirt is personified, becoming an active participant in decolonization beginning with an act of self abolishment, an act of self-criticality, and defiance of racial allegiance.