Nature’s Wild grew out of the book of the same name and addressed the same tensions: human-animal relations and histories of animalization and race in the Caribbean — how colonists, then postcolonial elites, put the onus on marginalized people to prove themselves human and “not-animal,” for example through dress codes, laws about sexuality, and definitions of citizenship.
Even if partially imagined, the cancellation of the exhibition was still shocking, a kind of summary execution with no warning, and no recourse. My disappointment was overlaid by anger and disbelief — and yes, fear. What was happening in the US had come into my house, into my home here in Canada, in a deeply personal way.
“Gawd hates de sin, not de sinnah,” Genie reminded. She could almost see the angst in her husband’s eyes, she knew him thoroughly. He was a good man. Had married her in a community where women had to make miserable choices, often deciding whom to cohabit with based on gang colors or who could offer them protection.
In this meditation Garth White’s framing of rudie has been edited, revised and expanded in order to apply it to different eras of the music over time and location. His approach remains the initial touchstone for how we can understand rudie culture.
In this re-imagining rudie can only be multi-dimensional and multi-gender.
You see it then: the violence of tropical light,
all living things now reduced to chalk outlines against a bruised sky, knuckled
daylong into perfect blue performance. And you too, you realize,
are knuckled, sore with the weight of expectation, pummeled by the script
of nationhood, its exhaustive choreography.
Interior’s most striking feature is the taxidermized bird embedded within it. Possibly a direct reference to the Ziz, the bird can also be seen as a poignant symbol for the act of sacrifice. The root meaning of sacrifice is to ‘make something holy’. The way this creature which has forever departed its mortal shell is remade into something, commanding such awe is a means of transmuting it into something holy. Its encasement in clear glass is also meaningful — a material which like water is reflective and often considered a portal. Here it serves as a container, trapping a thing that was once free and unbound even from the laws of gravity. The creature is given a second life in a way, but a life it cannot make use of.
During the savage rule of King Leopold II of Belgium (still a highly celebrated figure there) Black men, women and children in the Congo were often mutilated under Leopold’s orders having their hands and feet severed as punishment for not supplying the daily quota of rubber. What is even more sinister is that one of the most popular chocolates in Belgium today is Antwerpse handjes (Antwerp Hands), chocolate shaped to resemble severed human hands.
RHEA MANLEY Ailurophilia It’s the way how Nancy came in from the back, into the kitchen how our eyes made four as she advanced how I jumped on the counter, bawled out Maya! a cat is coming and she is not afraid. How Maya put...
Mi want an excuse fi get him number for months now and I was glad for it… but all mi can think bout is the shirt and the pants. I want them back. I think I want it to juice out whatever sweat from the work him do just now with the cane juicer in the kitchen. Mi want fi keep it in a perfume bottle to spray on myself. When him ready fi change back, him turn roun and I turn too.
AMANIE MATHURIN May 21st, 1971 — Augustine Osman “Tiwé tjou an lakou mwen avan mwen soté tét...
Inspiration for this portrait comes from Ixora, an 18th-century engraving by European engraver Bernard Picart, from the influential text “Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Known World.” Illustrating the Hindu deity Shiva, often represented with four arms, this exaggerated interpretation portrays the god with sixteen arms holding various tools, only some of which seem benign.
I tilted my head back and drained the remains into my mouth. My grandmother put her spoon down and did the same. When the empty bowls returned to the table, my grandmother wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. That was good. Very nice. I can eat that everyday, she smiled so wide I could see her missing back teeth.
