OBJECTS & CREATIONS
Greedy Piggy
The piece is signed, "We, the Pillars of your institutions and nurturers of this land, will not endure the abuse of your inhumanity, ignorance, and greed any longer.” Created during the Trump administration, in 2019 entering into the COVID-19 epidemic, the Congressional mandate requiring ICE to maintain a minimum number of detainees exceeded 52,000 beds. Simultaneously, in cities like my hometown, New Orleans, we continue to see the legacy of redlining, which was eradicated over 50 years ago, foster economic and health hardships for the Black and Brown working class. Through observation and first-hand experience, I pored over the isolating and wearing impact of participating in calculated and strategically woven socio-political systems created to take advantage of the resilience of strong, innovative, and skillful Black Indigenous People of Color. In this piece, I explored these vulnerable feelings which are challenged by my knowledge and understanding of my community and our history. The result is a critique of capitalistic exploitation from the perspective of a victim that refuses to behave or submit as one.
Greedy Piggy x Baller block'n
In 1971 American President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. According to a candid and controversial interview with former White House Adviser, John Ehrlichman, the war was a political tool to target and criminalize Black people. “We know we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or be Black but by getting the public to associate the hippies with Marijuana and the Black people with Heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.” Political schemes like Nixon’s harmful agenda to modern adaptations like Trump’s Wall create stereotypical and false narratives of Black and Brown communities that have devastating and long-lasting effects. From childhood, Black and Brown communities are criminalized for their existence and pushed into socio-political systems that work in tandem, allowing them to be exploited for capitalistic gain. Baller Block’n, visually inspired by the 2000 film and gangster rap album set in New Orleans' Magnolia Projects, tells a story from my perspective centering on the grace, strength, and beauty of Black Indigenous People of Color as they continue to live within suffocating socio-political systems and violent and abusive governance- an unfortunately common theme across the globe represented by dictators at large Vladimir Putin, Nicolás Maduro, Daniel Ortega, and Kim Jong-un.
