Depicting African American womanhood in a transatlantic space
The quest for emancipation was shaped by the influence of Africa – the symbolic homeland or “Motherland” – on African American womanhood and its representation in art. Whereas the Black Arts Movement advocated for African American artists’ visibility, Black women remained erased from history. In the...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles, |
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| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
| Pubblicazione: |
Angles
2025
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| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | The quest for emancipation was shaped by the influence of Africa – the symbolic homeland or “Motherland” – on African American womanhood and its representation in art. Whereas the Black Arts Movement advocated for African American artists’ visibility, Black women remained erased from history. In the 1970s, fighting racial discrimination sometimes prevailed over confronting sexism, especially within the Black community. Thus, artistic collectives such as AfriCOBRA and Weusi provided Black women with a network of solidarity that could launch and support their careers. This article focuses on two visual artists whose work helped narrate Black women’s history from a diasporic perspective: Barbara Jones-Hogu and Dindga McCannon. Both were instrumental in their collective’s success and used such engagement to explore their own identity, drawing on African imagery. Both artists, perceived as “returnees”, used their trips to different West African countries such as Senegal and Ghana to offer new portraits of African American women inspired by African roots that had been severed, and restore their position in the historical narrative of the diaspora. This article explores Hogu and McCannon’s agency to unveil obscured parts of African American women’s history. Both members of the Black Arts Movement, they made Black art for their community and attempted to create a bond between their community and its African heritage, thus addressing a larger artistic transatlantic agenda. |
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