A thing is a thing is a thing…except when it’s not.
Welcome to material culture, part deux, a brief rumble in the jungle that takes us a bit away from the realm of things and into the territory of being.
A note on the artwork
The images that accompany this week’s post are from a number of contemporary Caribbean artists, I hope you enjoy and have a chance to look through more of their work. I also hope that they offer something new for you in this evolving construction of “Caribbeanness”. While unravelling the colonial legacy is important in its own right, it is equally important to add to the layers of identity with the language of today as well as the imagineerings of our future selves (my future self imagines that imagineering will be a true and active word!)
Have an magical and easy week!
Fermín Ceballos, “Isolation” (2005), photo of performance, Santo Domingo (photograph by Sayuri Guzmán, courtesy the artist)
To be fair, the question is not ‘do Caribbean things matter’, but rather, ‘does the Caribbean matter’?
If material objects are essentially physical articulations of the values and systems within a society, then things are as much the past, present and future of a place as the land itself. And so, we settle on this question of relevance, representation and value, all from the “stuff” we see but don’t see, but that also sustains our global connective tissue. As Caribbean nations and people, we are not just plugged into that web, we built it in very real and tangible ways. The Caribbean has always and continues to be in dialogue with the world through the production and consumption of things.
The untruth that we have been passive in our own history making, in the making of this material world, is in direct conflict with the physical evidence. From gold to sugar to bauxite, there is no empire on earth that hasn’t benefitted in some way from the people and products of our region. An analysis of the consequences of that continued extraction is well fought and well worn territory. While we continue to grapple with that legacy however, what we often fail to recognize is our equally important role as active consumers. Our traditional garments have origins in India, our technology comes largely from China…even our tourist bric a brac is mostly imported. Caribbean things do not begin or end with products of a slave economy. Nor do they necessarily retain their original form or intended use. Caribbean people, as we well know, are masters of transformation.
Ebony G. Patterson, …three kings weep..., 2018, three-channel digital video, color, sound, 8 minutes 34 seconds.
One of the main issues with the study of material culture is that it often ignores the ways in which products are used over time and how that subsequent use is shaped by their environments. The intimate and immediate value of an object is only a portion of its power. Our things, these artifacts of Caribbean life, are shaped by and through the unique conditions of island living. The idea of what is disposable and what is not, what has value and what does not, and the accompanying emotional baggage of all of those differences, these things are unique to us and we must continue to assert that ourselves. A crochet doily on an ornate mahogany table speaks more to Caribbean design than all pages of any glossy magazine touting essential “island style”.
Caribbean things matter for the same reason that the Caribbean matters; because we are present and we remember. We remember it all; not just the legacy of slavery, and the stain of imperialism, but the early faltering steps of independence, and the shifting centers of economic growth. We also exist in the present, grappling with present day complex notions of individual freedom, collective liberation, and nation building, all of which take place through our relationship with things.
Caribbean things matter for the simple reason that things matter; they are our mythos, our memory and our unfolding future.
Nyugen Smith; Bundlehouse: FS Mini No.2, Mixed media and found object sculpture 31" X 18.5" X 18.5" 2019
More info / work from these artists, here
https://ferminceballos.com/
http://ebonygpatterson.com/
https://www.nyugensmith.com/