“
an inheritance / a threat / a haunting”
In 'an inheritance /a threat / a haunting’, the artist replicates the steps taken by enslaved Africans in 18th century Jamaica to create a powder derived from cassava (a naturally poisonous plant indigenous to South America) with which to poison slave masters. Through this work, these steps are reimagined as a recipe passed down from generation to generation for how to assert one's subjectivity in the face of an (un)livability that persists in the wake of transatlantic slavery, as described by academic Christina Sharpe.
Embracing the notion of a weapon hidden in plain sight, the video installation at once displays and preserves the secret of the intended poisoning. Similarly, the curtains in the neo-colonial home in which the exhibition took place speak to the invisible and exploited care labour that would have made such poisonings possible.
Key words: Black rage; trans-atlantic slave trade; the wake; poison; domestic labour; femininity; archives; Jamaica; resistance; food
an inheritance / a threat / a haunting, video installation and custom curtains, 2022
