I am the soul and creative mind behind AFRONOMADNESS collective.
A webzine, a collective digital platform by and for the community this is as also the concept for my visual activism.
The purpose of the platform is to work towards community emancipation from the symbol that is the body of the Black Woman in essence, the fundamental character at the centre of our plural Diasporas, to rebuild as people through personal restoration and empowerment.
This approach must be carried out from different fronts, eradicating among other things, geographical, cultural and linguistic boundaries as well as radical ideas. Normalizing and accepting our differences because we are multiple and diverse.
Our team is varied, multilingual and is located in different corners of the planet.
We want to provoke deep reflection from a versatile panel of voices and give back to the reality in the streets, to the real experiences and bodies their place in the debates because the academic world does not reflect all the realities that must be made visible.
AFRONOMADNESS aims to be an alternative response for a therapeutic path, a holistic approach for mind, heart and body, needed to achieve community self-care, rebuilding identity, self-esteem, interpersonal relationships.
A progressive conscious deconstruction can only be beneficial for a better outcome.
Will tackle art as well, for its therapeutic benefits and its inexhaustible sources and various forms of artistic expression, joining into the revolution to decolonize and democratize its various mediums, to deconstruct concepts inherent to the racialized body and be inspired by a new generation.
To respond to the lack of opportunities for people perceived as racialized by the system or society, we want to offer a window from which they can be seen, expose their ideas, projects and initiatives.
The idea is also to highlight talents from our multiple Diásporas.
Hopefully, it could be the beginning of a new chapter, to discover talents and give them a voice while building piece by piece, section by section a collective directory. As the union is a driving force and fusion is our essence and belief.
A directory where people can see and recognised each other, to learn, to communicate, to support, to collaborate.
My additional work using visuals is a critical view of the world dealing with my condition as an Afro Caribbean/Afropean in an occidental world.
My particular voice has an Afrocentric and womanist angle, using multimedia as support to express my opinion. Part of the message is a social critic, addressing stigmas and stereotypes.
This is an intent to transform my personal fight of resistance against oppression through a creative process looking for beauty at the same time as my own art expression. There is as well an intention to start a dialogue between cultures, people and the duality between men and women, exploring gender and sexual bias.
I wish to represent those bodies and faces who were not pretty enough, feminine enough, fragile enough to be regarded and respected as feminine incarnations.
I define myself as an Afropolitan woman even though I was not born or raised on the African continent. I reclaim my long lost African heritage being an Afro-fusion of cultures. I’m local in Paris where I was born, in Fort de France on the Caribbean island of Martinique where I spent part of my childhood and where they used to call me in between status Négropolitaine.
I left for London in my youth to become a woman and home has been Spain in recent years. I am a citizen of the world who feel revolted and abhor the concept of frontiers.
I strongly believe that my personal fate, my struggle with this actual world is a common and a collective experience in the diverse and plural world Diasporas.
My womanhood is the centrepiece as this is who I am and what I represent in this reality.
I feel the need to represent a lot of silent voices, the ones who can’t escape for a minute their oppressive condition because it is a constant fight for survival.
I speak through my own experiences for my mother, my grandmother and all the women in my lineage. The wombs who had the heavy burden to birth our bodies, souls and hearts and give us the force in a sense to carry on with our own destiny. Perpetuating generation from generation a strong African tradition where the resilience of a mother is everything.
I wish to represent those bodies and faces who were not pretty enough, feminine enough, fragile enough to be regarded and respected as feminine incarnations. Those who would go through life without artifice or make up.
Those too strong or too frail ageing bodies drawing a map of scars, stretch marks, wrinkles and grey hair telling individual destinies. Androgynous bodies not conforming to any real categorie, half shaven heads like mine…
At a time in our global world where some women of African descent seem to finally get the unanimous accolade where they starting to have a prominent narrative to convey to the masses. I believe there can’t be a successful outcome overall because of a few token triumphs while the core majority is left struggling.
Racism and sexism combined have endemic proportions in our societies and have to be surgically removed. Only with a community working as a joint venture the membrane which is social equity will be built in order to rise collectively.
I felt the need to connect furthermore with my Negritude to explore its humanity.
I used the same primitive mask to unify the common destinies of the global Diaspora to pay tribute to my origins highlighting that dark is light and beauty.
#The BlackfaceSerie was born spontaneously as I was organically connected and coming out of the #StopBlackFace campaign which took place over Christmas 2017 here in Spain. I was part of a team linked to an Afrofeminist digital magazine. After the incredible amount of hostile reaction and xenophobic attacks, I felt compelled to go further.
Part of this work was published on the internet, the 8th of March 2018 to support the silent voices of the various women who couldn’t attend the strike or the street demonstrations fearing deportation or losing their precarious job, jeopardizing the custody of their children or simply being traumatized enough by the Spanish state or system. These women and activists defending them were humiliated and harassed by the main body of White feminism in Spain.
In response to this reality, I chose to publish in silent support photos showing the violence our bodies are subjected to.
Furthermore, I wanted to represent graphically the dehumanizing of the Black body as it is a universal concept for any White society.
I wanted the viewer to acknowledge the fact that it is how we are seen and there is no escaping this reductive view of who they want us to be.
This constructed metaphor was necessary to observe the systematic discriminatory treatment we receive as a community.
I added to the mix the objectification of the female body how it is animalized, preyed upon, touched and attacked to be dominated.
Applying real Blackface images on top of my face was to condemn this old fashion historic racist tradition, using our skin as costume. Portraying what White society believes to be stereotypical behaviours of people of African descent and uses for their entertainment.
I felt the need to connect furthermore with my Negritude to explore its humanity.
I used the same primitive mask to unify the common destinies of the global Diaspora to pay tribute to my origins highlighting that dark is light and beauty.
AnimalizedBody
RacialProfiling
Blackface
Immigration
MisogyNoirViolence
Emotions
Portraits
Afronomadness Collective
Are Alcoy’s black Christmas pages racist?
El Pais
The Club Talk to AfroFeminas’ SuperFunkyNat and Get Real!
Lucas Cavaos on RKB Radio Kanal Barcelona
