Transmission/Transition. by Hamed Maiye

Photo Credit with the name Nwaka Okparaeke

TRANSMISSION/

TRANSITION.

HAMED MAIYE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY VISUAL ARTIST,

UCA (ALUMNI).

Transmission/Transition is a visual essay that extends on a previous collaborative project; Afro-Portraitism. Afro-Portraitism explores the art of portraiture within the African diaspora, taking all the connotations portraiture has carried throughout history and applying them to today’s current social climate. One of the key drivers of AP is exploring the concept of self-representation.

T/T reflects upon an internal monologue based around the feeling of displacement, and plays around with Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness. Du Bois explains this concept as viewing your identity in separate pieces, making it difficult to view it as a whole. He reflects on his African heritage and his navigation through a Euro-dominated society.

The dialogue of the visuals is set in three stages of displacement: - Discovery - Confusion/Chaos - Reclamation

Discovery The welcoming to a strange land. Discovery introduces the context and the characters and then sets the stage for the internal conversation which takes place in confusion/chaos.

Confusion/Chaos is the internal conversation based on displacement. How do we visualise our feelings of confusion? Viewing your identity through another lens. Discomfort, compression, expansion.

Reclamation is the digestion of internal conflict and the reconciliation of all the

feelings experienced throughout confusion/ chaos. The conversion of displacement into a sense of belonging; not to your context but to your personal identity.

The output of T/T is a short film & photo series opened up by Sun Ra who states “If someone lands on planet earth from outer space, what kind of treatment would they get? Because what country do you have that would give them any kind of respect? Ah… protect them, you don’t have any country that has thought about that. But since we’re living in the space age it should be thought of”.

We follow three characters and watch as they navigate throughout the landscape, living through the three stages of displacement. In the end the characters find unity and reconciliation. Adorned by hyper opulent clothing and objects they reclaim their identity, finding a sense of belonging within self. The photo series captured by Nwaka Okparaeke and styled by Kashmir Wikham and Jawara Alleyne, further explores the concept of hyper opulence. The consistent use of gold acts as a visual affirmation to blackness and to self. An intersection of Afro-Portraitism and Afro- Surrealism, T/T serves as a reminder of personal reflection and affirmation.

Reflection: This project originates from a consistent feeling I’ve tried to reconcile with but struggled to identify. Through a series of reflections and personal thoughts I start by contextualising the word displacement. By definition, displacement is described as “the action of moving something from its

Photo Credit with the name Nwaka Okparaeke

place or position”. Often with black western identities there are prescribed pre-sets and markers which are inherited. What happens when you don’t tick all the boxes, but perhaps sit slightly outside as an outlier. ‘African American’ and ‘Black British’ are flags we often wave in the west. However, if you don’t identify with this, an internal feeling of displacement can develop. Displacement itself can manifest in many forms; the common denominator is always this heavy sense of confusion. When Du Bois explored double consciousness in 1903 the point of validation was ‘African American’ – but how is one simultaneously African and American? A hundred plus years later and some of us are still asking similar questions.

more, rather than focus on difference.

Reconciling with displacement has created a whole new set of questions to explore, which ultimately boil down to: what happens when we all realise our collective and individual powers?

* A special thank you to all of T/T’s collaborators & contributors: Nwaka Okparaeke, Kashmir Wickham, Jawara Alleyne, AJ Haast, Melo-Zed, Afrolion, Robert Jesse, Bianca Saunders, Freya Bramble Carter, Kobby Adi, Cheyanne Ettienne-Chen, Tunmise, Ayesha McMahon, Corey Chuck & Ejatu Shaw *

How do we manage to mould all these separate pieces into one cohesive picture?

How do I validate my blackness?

Through this project and through further exploring Afro-Portraitism I’ve realised that existing is enough to validate my blackness. Blackness is a spectrum and not a fixed set of parameters that you need to tick off in order to be. Internalising this as a mantra has helped me foster a new appreciation for artists who explore self-identity within their work. Artists such as Zaneli Muholi, Isaac Julien, and Omar Victor Diop create their own landscapes of what blackness looks like to them within their work. In many ways these works act as a form of Afro-Surrealism – imaginations of what could be but doesn’t currently exist in an everyday realm. Carving our own identities and serving them on an unapologetic plate helps to add more stories in the ever changing book of blackness. I’ve realised why growing up I’ve been most drawn to works which focus on the black mundane; works such as Spike Lee’s ‘Do the right thing’ and ‘Crooklyn’, which offer small insights into everyday life. This normalisation of the smaller details of blackness has helped me form and explore the common ground

Photo Credit with the name Nwaka Okparaeke