I came across a really intriguing artist today, in my Race & Psychoanalysis seminar. Her name is Firelei Báez, and she hails from the Dominican Republic to Dominican and Haitian parents and now lives and works in New York. Her work has been exhibited in various national and international institutions, including the New Jersey City Museum and El Museo Del Barrio, and won many prestigious awards including The Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Award, The Jaque and Natasha Gelman Award, and The Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Award among others.
I was particularly struck by her “Can I Pass? Introducing the Paper Bag to The Fan Test for the Month of December” self-portrait silhouettes… really haunting stuff. Here’s her description and an image:
“In documenting the daily changes to my hair, a natural hygrometer, this ongoing piece brings up two absurd tests used for racial stratification, the ‘brown paperbag’ and ‘fan’ tests, of the American South and the Dominican Republic, which informed social interactions during my upbringing in these sites.”
Can I Pass? Introducing the Paper Bag to The Fan Test for the Month of
December, 31 individual self-portrait silhouettes, configured in a 31
day calendar grid
2010
Gouache, ink and graphite on paper
108 x 84 inches
Visit her site and see her work here.
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About Adebe D.A.
✝∞ Credo quia absurdum/Lux Aeterna (RIP A.D.): "I will not forget thy word. Amen." Psalm 119:16 ∞ ✝
To be an artist one must be an aristocrat of the Spirit.
I write articles for publications that focus on social justice, culture, and books. I'm a regular contributor to RaceWire/Colorlines, having been a former research fellow at the Applied Research Center, and Culture Editor for Racetalk.org, a blog on race issues from a political and pop culture perspective.
I was crowned Toronto's Junior Poet Laureate in 2005. My chapbook of poems, Sea Change, was published in 2007 by Burning Effigy Press.
I fulfilled my bohemian dream of attending the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Colorado in Summer 2008.
My DEBUT full-length poetry collection, Ex Nihilo, was just published by Frontenac House, as a chosen manuscript from the Dektet 2010 competition. It will be available in stores across Canada, as well as online at Amazon.com and ChaptersIndigo.ca. Read about it here: http://frontenachouse.com/titles/single/ex_nihilo/
Ex Nihilo was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the world's largest poetry prize for young writers.
I also recently edited and published, with Andrea Thompson, an anthology by and about mixed-race women entitled Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out (Inanna Publications, 2010). Check us out on facebook!
Visit my fan page! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=509596752#!/pages/Adebe-DA/109123712453111?ref=ts
