Self-Fashioning and Agency

Carl and Karen Pope, Palimpsest, 1998–99, stills from single-channel video, color with sound, 6:37 minutes . Courtesy of Carl and Karen Pope . Photograph by Clare Britt .

Call: In Palimpsest (1998–99), the artists and twin siblings Carl and Karen Pope, explore reclaiming individual agency over the body as a means to resist the ways systems of oppression have harmed or stereotyped Black bodies . In a series of three permanent physical self-modifications, filmed and then compiled together as one video, Carl positions his own body as a site of simultaneous vulnerability and power . First, we see the artist having the adinkra symbol “Aya” (meaning “I am not afraid of you”) branded on his back . Second, a small incision is made on the artist’s arm and the small layer of skin is lifted up; a light shone through the skin shows how thin it is . Finally, a poem written by Karen is tattooed across the entire length of the artist’s body . Together, these acts represent the artist rewriting historical narratives and practices of violence—taking charge of how his own body experiences pain and beauty .

Top: Jess Dugan and Vanessa Fabbre: Dee Dee Ngozi, 55, Atlanta, GA, 2016, from the portfolio To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults, (2018), inkjet print on paper, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, The Block Friends of Art Fund purchase . 2019 .2 .1u-v Above: Mikki Ferrill, Untitled (Annual Black Cowboy Parade, Oakland) 1986 . Gelatin silver print, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Gift of Mikki Ferrill . 2000 .25 .4 . Courtesy of the artist © Mikki Ferrill Response: Palimpsest emphasizes the nuanced complexity of agency . Photographs by Jess Dugan and Mikki Ferrill speak to the radical necessity of being able to define our own individual and collective identities, and shape how the stories of our lives and our histories move through the world . They also celebrate the significant role that clothing can play in self-fashioning . In Ferrill’s photograph (left), a participant from Oakland’s Annual Black Cowboy Parade faces the camera, casual but bold in his stance while displaying his holstered gun and standing in a grassy area with horses in the background . Since 1975, The Annual Black Cowboy Parade and the Oakland Black Cowboy Association have been educating the public about the important and often overlooked legacy of African American cowboys in the West . In the portrait taken by artist Jess Dugan (above), Dee Dee Ngozi stands proudly facing the camera dressed completely in royal red clothing . Dee Dee’s bright dress, makeup, jewelry, and elegantly draped feather boa shine as a vibrant declaration of the self and beauty . Dugan’s series To Survive on This Shore challenges one-dimensional representations of older transgender people and instead celebrates a wide range of life experiences and intersecting identities . In the personal interview that accompanies this photograph, Dee Dee explains how living a purpose-driven life comes from the courage to fully and unapologetically express your spirit to the world, even when others challenge the truth of your calling .

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise .

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room .

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise .

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard .

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise . Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide .

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave . I rise I rise I rise .