Releasing the Burden of Being Complicit In Our Own Suffering

For the Worldbuilders Ep. 052

Augusta Savage with her sculpture Realization in 1938. Collection of The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center. Photo: Courtesy of CCS Bard. I came across this photo after/at a talk titled “Black Melancholia as a Critical Practice” at the ICA at VCU given by the curator Nana Adusei-Poku presenting her research on “Black Melancholia”. “Black Melancholia pushes beyond the iconography of melancholia as an art historical subject and psychoanalytical concept to subvert highly racialized discourses in which notions of longing, despair, sadness, and loss were not only pathologized, but also reserved for white cis (fe-)male subjects. The exhibition aims to create a generative space for inspiration, solace, and refuge through a presentation that blends new and recent works with pieces from the late 19th to mid-20th century by artists whose careers never reached full recognition or potential during their lifetimes due to systemic erasure.” — CCS Bard