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The photographic work in this exhibition is drawn from an artist residency I did in Belgium a few years ago, after receiving a King Baudoin Foundation - U.S. Cultural Exchange Fellowship. My primary interest was to look for ways that the story of the Congo is told in Belgium. These photographs were taken primarily in Brussels - in the Grand Place, in a flea market called the Marolles, in a small Congolese neighborhood Matonge, and at the Royal Museum for Central Africa outside of Brussels in Tervuren. As a few personal and professional projects have intervened over the past couple of years, I am excited to be able to re-visit these images and finally be able to share them.
As someone who grew up in the American South, making work which reflects the complexity of that experience has become important to me. Thinking about the relationship between people of African and native descent with those of European descent, as well as the syncretism of those cultures, unravels my own identity.
My artistic practice can perhaps be best described as conceptual. For me, the personal is political. A research-based interdisciplinary approach shapes my work. Art is a way of thinking about the world, and my studio is a place of meditation. I hope these photographs offer avenues to think about the continued grafting and mixing of post-colonial cultures.
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