“Me Gritaron Negra” Metal Piece
Development shots
For my metal piece I knew I wanted to experiment with shadows and projection since those were pieces that involved light and shadow and I wanted to see what I could come up with. I got the idea of making frames that project when watching the Professor give a tutorial on different ways to manipulate the metal piece. I wanted to do a piece about identity and a problem that is still at times an issue I wanted to talk about Anti-Blackness in the Latinx community and how it develops into self hatred amongst Afro-Latinx. I come from a latin family that comes in all shades, hair types and colors, eye shapes but there would be some people on my mother’s side of the family would be offended when called “black” or being associated with “black”. Growing up throughout middle school and high school I became confused with my identity due to the feeling I had to choose one or the other or becoming forced into a category. At one point I completely detached myself from being “black” and associated it with negatives as well and tried to straighten my hair and avoid the sun to fit in and not be seen as a borderline of both. Especially since I was more influenced by my Hispanic mother’s side versus my African american father’s side. I was always not “Latina” enough because I did not look like the ones on TV and i was always not “black” enough because of embracing my mother’s culture (and features as well). High school I also dealt with dating Hispanic men who told me I could never meet their families because of how mad they would be that they brought a “negra” home and they wanted them to be with girls who looked like them not ones that looked like me. I have been followed around stores no matter how much I tried to align myself and had to “prove” myself that I am “Spanish” enough as well as been labelled as ghetto based upon how I look because of my hair, skin tone and facial features. I even became the “pass” for some people because I was not “too” black so I was “okay” to be around or to become associated with. It was not until I was a sophomore in college when I told myself I will accept both sides and accept I am both black and Latina and I am proud of being both. I started seeing more and more people that looked like me on social media platforms under “Afrolatina” and I embraced that title and I still do and I no longer carry the idea of :negra” as being a burden.
With the piece I gained inspiration from the poem “Me gritaron negra” which means they called me black by Afro-Peruvian composer, choreographer and activist Victoria Santa Cruz which describes the experience of being black and carrying it as something shame then growing up and becoming one with yourself and blackness. It is a beautiful poem and I remember coming across it and it always leaving an everlasting impression on and how strong it the piece made me feel.
As for the process of this piece I wanted to do the idea of framing and being boxed in this word. I left the piece standing weird and irregular in shape to show how confusing it was growing up and not being sure what your identity is and just being stuck in this label that you grew to hate. I wanted to project to be bigger than my body instead of projecting it onto my body because the word became bigger than be and it became me and no matter how much I denied it and tried to change I will always be black. I also included a collage of beauty ads that show women who follow Euro-centric beauty standards because that is what I saw growing up and that is what I thought what beauty was so it is a mix of ads from hair straightening as well as skin bleaching. On the other piece of cardboard I put on the piece I wrote “Don’t get to dark” and “Not black” repeating because that became a daily affirmation for me growing up and I kept trying to be the women in the collage instead of being myself. If I could change anything on the piece I would add more frames as well as more writing on it maybe even include my personal pictures growing up and seeing those changes to me now accepting who I am and what I look like. Due to illness I was unable to achieve those things but I would most likely revisit the piece in the future or make an extension of this piece.
Video of my piece: