Because they Believe in Unicorns
In her book “The New Jim Crow” Michelle Alexander writes about how the ideal of colorblindness can prop up systems of social injustice, in the case of her book she is referring to the mass incarceration of Black men due to the war on drugs. The war on drugs is a colorblind policy, which allows for racial indifference. The ideal of one’s race not being a factor is a myth, like a unicorn. Here, I have my version of a unicorn, a Black person whose color isn’t relevant to their place in society. The top two-thirds of the room is collaged with “Time” and “Life” magazine covers then painted and sanded. The lower third consists of a flat dark brown color. The unicorn, suspended in the middle of the room, is constructed from surplus WWII tents, a reference to America romanticizing war-in this case the war on drugs. The figure sits suspended in mid air; however, I want to play with the perception of whether this figure is being hung from the ceiling or elevation out of the so-called darkness.
