“Missing Black Techno-fossils” by Quentin VerCetty
Title:
- Missing Black Techno-fossils
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
- ISEA2020: 26th International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More artworks from ISEA2020:
Medium:
- Augmented reality, digital 3D art, and 3D printing
Artist Statement:
Missing Black Techno-fossils is an Afrofuturistic project consists of augmented reality, digital 3D art, and 3D printing, to address Tania Inniss’ notion that “the absence of Black representation in art” is erasure. The project looks at monuments as Afrofuturistic technofossils along with being examples of sankofanology, meaning they are human-made preservations connecting the past, present, and future through its existence very much like the Sphinx of ancient Egypt, and the bronze Edo Oba monuments of ancient Benin.
The project brings attention to the erasure of Black stories in the Canadian landscape, especially with Toronto being one of the only major cities in the world without any monuments of Black people. Along with Montreal, although being the residence of the first documented free Africans in North America in the 16th century, it contains no monuments of that history. Through speculation, the project explores how the absence and lack of representation give space for a lack of validation, valuing, and connection for black people with themselves and their memory or data for the future. While also, this erasure causes a disconnect for non-black folks to see them as being contributors to society.
Sponsors:
Missing Black Technofossils was created as a part of the Shaping the Past initiative which is a partnership of the Goethe-Institut, Monument Lab, and the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education). The project connects to the activist and artistic work of local, national, and transnational movements as a reflection of memory culture and discusses new perspectives on forms of memory.
