Check out this great interview with Maimouna Guerresi by Dane Verret from 4wrd…inspired by a post from BCA!
4wrd:
Faluka, Maimouna Guerresi - Courtesy Artist & Stux Gallery, NYC
Afrofuturism is an emerging, international art aesthetic rooted in Africa and the African Diaspora. It predicts or proposes possible futures from a Black/African perspective. These artists’ works show us new or lost perspectives on Humanity often through the Black experience. They work in open defiance of stereotypes which simplify people of all colors, genders and creeds through critical and creative examinations our past, present and future. I immediately associated Maimouna Guerresi’s art(pictured above) with the concepts of Afrofuturism.
Here in the West identity politics are comparable to a food canning factory. Most of us have likely grown up in a system that grinds up our identities, processes it, and reduces it into something easy to consume and control. This hides the ingredients that make us—our roots. In this way the West often obscures the diversity and complexity of living things.
Ignorant of the ways we’ve been divided by the ideas of race, gender, religion, our imagination becomes stunted. No imagination? No progress. A system based on discrimination and segregation seeks conquer and control its subjects by dividing us, limiting our ability to see new opportunities or possibilities for a future. How? It destroys our ability to communicate with other groups, renders us incapable of exchanging knowledge. In a segregated society ignorance grows in the place of knowledge.So, I look for art that helps me to re-imagine the world.
Maimouna Guerresi’s art has the potential to elevate you into another dimension.
(Source: orijournal)
