About the Cover

Abstract

About the Cover Gina Athena Ulysse (bio) About the Cover: "Ola Thunder"1 by Gina Athena Ulysse 2019 Kwi and digital photograph © 2019 by Gina Athena Ulysse. Permission to reprint may be obtained only from the artist. Artist Statement What if our point of departure in encounters with difference stemmed not from domination, but an impulse of radical vulnerability? What would we turn to if we did not cling to power? Would we recognize and comprehend that difference as an opening? Expansive. Limitless. Extremities. Revelation. A space to meditatively confront and embrace our socially limited imagination? Would we become more aware of our sensibilities … feel a multitude of sentiments, feel that, as Toni Cade Bambara asserts, "the revolution begins with the self … in the self". Deference. Humility. Surrender. Grace. Can these sentiments be reflected? What reflects them? "Ola Thunder" was a central piece in An Equitable Human Assertion, a site-specific installation-performance rasanblaj (a gathering) of ideas, things, people and spirits exhibited in Australia at the Biennale of Sydney in 2020. Variations of the primary materials in this work are found all over the world. The Kwi, made from the kalbas or calabash tree (Crescentia Cujete), are the simple, sacred and profane holder of rasanblaj. These gourds are known for their multifunctionality and significations, routinely used as containers for eating and storage, carvings, musical instruments, and as sacred objects. In this rasanblaj, the Kwi are and have become living things—primordial beings possessing aesthetics in their myriad forms, patina, textures, and vibrations. Reflected in the Kwi and other materials of this piece (cowries, kindling, threads, ochre, etc.) is the ancestral imperative in Afro-diasporic traditions and found referents in the long history of Indigenous Australian artistic expression. This work is an assertion of shared attachment to the land, and comparability in experiences of self-determination in the persistent shadow of colonialism, displacement, and fracture. My aim is a movement toward wholeness and a quest for beauty in nature, despite our human tendency to denigrate the earth and each other. With their inherent force, the Kwi create space inviting possibilities for new encounters, however ephemeral. [End Page iii] Gina Athena Ulysse Gina Athena Ulysse is a Haitian-American feminist artist-scholar and Professor of Feminist Studies at UCSC Her research is concerned with the expression and representation of the dailyness of Black diasporic conditions, her rasanblaj approach to her art and writing practice entails ongoing crossings and dialogues in the arts, humanities, and the social sciences. Her writing has also been published in Feminist Studies, Journal of Haitian Studies, InterimPoetics, Kerb: Journal of Landscape Architecture, Gastronomica, Third Text, Transition as well as in art catalogs and other venues. She was the invited editor of "Caribbean Rasanblaj" (2017), a double issue of e-misférica, journal of the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics at NYU. In 2020, she was an invited artist to the Biennale of Sydney, Australia. Over the years, she has been invited to perform at The British Museum, Gorki Theatre, LaMaMa, Marcus Garvey Liberty Hall, and MoMA Salon. Notes 1. This piece was inspired by the fierce little human created by two of my former students. ________ Click for larger view View full resolution Copyright © 2022 Feminist Formations