Excerpt from Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture

Leigh Raiford, "The Here and Now of Eslanda Robeson's African Journey," in Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture, edited by Leigh Raiford and Heike Raphael-Hernandez (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), 134-52

“Black and Cuba: An Interview with Director Robin J. Hayes”

Roth J. “Black and Cuba: An Interview with Director Robin J. Hayes”. In: Raiford L, Raphael Hernández H, eds. Migrating the Black Body. The African Diaspora and Visual Culture. Seattle: University of Washington Press; 2015

Visualizing Protest: African (Diasporic) Art and Contemporary Mediterranean Crossings

For Bisi Silva (1962–2019) Abstract This essay surveys a number of contemporary artworks that address the recent migrations and perilous water crossings of African people to Europe, made by artists of the African diaspora. Paying specific attention to the deployment of photography, time-based media, and installation, we argue that artists like Isaac Julien, Alexis Peskine, Romuald Hazoumè, and others disrupt the photojournalistic portrayals of African migrant–refugees crossing the Mediterranean in overloaded small rafts and makeshift boats circulated by the international media. While the UN and its High Commissioner for Refugees have tried for years to call international attention to the situation of these migrant–refugees in Libya’s camps and those camps’ catastrophic violations of human rights, it has been only recently that public attention and discourse have begun to recognize these crossings as a “crisis,” primarily because a growing number of African migrant–refugees have succeeded in reaching Fortress Europe via Spain or Italy. The artists of the African diaspora considered in this essay have attempted to intervene in these public debates by offering counternarratives to often sensational and dehumanizing depictions of specifically Black migrant–refugee lives. In focusing on these counternarratives, we demonstrate how artists connect this contemporary mass migration from African countries to a longer history of forced migrations over water in the African diaspora. Artists have returned continually to the “chronotrope of the ship,” following Paul Gilroy, and have drawn on this long memory as a means to convey the contemporary crisis, thus addressing the sorts of “colonial amnesia” that conveniently ignore any prior entanglements

A Matter of Fact : Toyin Ojih Odutola

"A Matter of Fact presents a new body of work from Toyin Ojih Odutola. With vibrant pastel and charcoal drawings developed out of her unique pen ink and pencil style, Ojih Odutola presents a meditation on the expression and constructs of wealth. From a portrait of a mother and daughter enjoying an equestrian afternoon to the commanding presentation of The Marchioness elegantly poised presiding within a mansion, these drawings allow one to recognize wealth, as it exists beyond fact or questioning. Often with apathetic expressions, the drawings render various characters from the UmuEze Amara Clan, a fictionalized aristocratic family. The creation of space becomes an act of portraiture as the detailed articulation of the rich textiles and elegant furniture perform a certain kind of resolute wealth. However, in this portrayal, Ojih Odutola constructs space for the audience to reevaluate their perceptions and expectations of this wealth as an act of intentional creation." -- Publisher's website

Black and Cuba

Roth J, Robin J. H. Black and Cuba. In: Raiford L, Raphael-Hernández H, eds. Migrating the Black Body The African Diaspora and Visual Culture. Seattle ; London: University of Washington Press; 2017: 153-169

Black and Cuba

Roth J, Robin J. H. Black and Cuba. In: Raiford L, Raphael-Hernández H, eds. Migrating the Black Body The African Diaspora and Visual Culture. Seattle ; London: University of Washington Press; 2017: 153-169