Mama Possum

Abstract

Abstract: Recalling a traumatic memory was John Jennings's first foray into what he would later call the ethnogothic . Jennings uses making practices and art to create dark spaces that offer not fear or dread but sanctuary until viewers can truly deal with the monsters that attack their psyches. The monster is a portent of danger, a warning that one has transgressed, and an urging to atone for sins, all key aspects of the gothic. The ethnogothic incorporates these characteristics of the gothic but addresses the specific concerns of the racially oppressed, describing how various modes of violence imprint themselves upon the spirits of Black and Brown people. The ethnogothic offers a space to place trauma, name it, and then let it go so that one can move on to a better future.