Colores | nikesha breeze: afrofuturism | season 31 | episode 3

Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community

Foundation. New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowmentfor the Arts. and viewers like you. THROUGH EXPLORATIONS OF AFROFUTURISM AND

ANCESTRAL MEMORY. NIKESHA BREEZE RECLAIMS LOST NARRATIVES AND HONORS THE SOULS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA. IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES! AFROFUTURISM >>Faith: Nikesha, to get us

started, I wanted to talk about how your work often incorporates elements of Afrofuturism and I want to know how do you define Afrofuturism, and how does that, apply to your work?

>>Nikesha: To me, Afrofuturism is really centered around our reclamation of time. that, are we're talking about this sort of alternate futures, you know, where black people exist,

so we have this- and that is really an important piece where it's like black people exist in the future. You know, what do we look like? How do we how do we express what is our

cultural expression, you know, developed into. So for me, Afrofuturism is this relationship to the future, our existence in the future, and how that ties also through our present to our

existence in the past and the way that it's kind of flipped on its head. Afrofuturism is, also, you know, there's a concept of severance that has happened in African diasporic

storylines where, you know, we have been severed from our histories, from the histories of our people, from histories of our origins. You know, the folklore and the stories and the

languages. All of them have been, in a way, cut through time. And so, Afrofuturism seeks to reclaim that lost time, reclaim those lost stories pulling from, you know, ancient African tribal,

you know, rights and, cultural practices and, flying them into futuristic technological landscapes. And so, yeah, Afrofuturism to me is a reclamation of of time for the diaspora. [Music]

>>Faith: The archival portraitures, the oil paintings that you've done. Can you tell me, like, what inspired that series? >>Nikesha: I look at myself as a research based

artist, and everything I do is is really a response from the historical research and reclamation work that that I'm doing as a- not not quite an archivist. I really am a researcher. I

love to just get in there and read and learn. And in that process, for me, I, I was looking at and gathering sort of the first images that were ever created of African American people. It

started with early a simple question of like, well, what did what did they look like? What's the first images that we have of African Americans? [Music] And that brought me to the

development of camera, and particularly the film process of the daguerreotype. That was revolutionary for the world. The daguerreotype was the first, you know, photographic, process that was

created in the 1850s. The vision for me was, yeah. What were the first black people? And when, especially in America during the 1850s, which was pre emancipation, you know, we had an 80% or

more of the African-American population were enslaved during that time. And so who were getting photographed where they enslaved people somehow brought into studios or was it free- you

know, African-American people? These types of questions really drove my research. And in that process, I was able to uncover a collection of images in the Library of Congress. You know, as

you look through, they're they're quite they're not quite a number of them, but there's a lot of daguerreotypes that you can see and they all have deep stories, but we

don't know them. [Music] So for me, it was that question of what are the pictures? And then finding the photos and finding even more questions, you know, who are these people?

They're so powerful and so beautiful. Some of them had such incredible richness to their look, to their clothing, to their, you know, presentation and the space that it brings up more

questions. And so for me, I wanted to paint them large. I wanted to, in a way, blow these obscured images up for us all to see and to be able to engage with the questions that they bring up.

You know, all of the paintings in the archival portraiture series are anonymous peoples, you know. And what I love is that when I, when I painted them, yeah, they were able to, in a way,

like, really just hold, hold space that they never were able to hold. In the archive or probably in their lives as African-Americans during that time >>Nikesha: Frederick Douglass, you

know, was an incredibly obviously brilliant and essential, speaker and writer and, you know, activist of the 1800s. And what part of his activism was his use of the image? You know, during

that time, you know, African-American people were not only severely objectified through enslavement, but also stereotyped and the image of black people had up to that point, been mostly

portrayed in caricature and, you know, bad cartoons. You know, and so when the development of the photograph came along, Frederick Douglass as well as Sojourner Truth, really, held on to

that as being an important and powerful tool for African-American liberation, not only of our bodies, but of our image, you know, our image and the reclaiming of our images, of our of

ourselves and the crafting of our own images of ourselves. It was one of the most powerful tools that he believed. He wrote essays on it, actually, you know, like he really believed this was

the way for us to to build out who we were as African-American people. And so he was the most photographed person, not just black person, person in the 1850s. There are photos, you know, so

many photos he made of himself. And all of them were, you know, showing, African-American man not only literate, which was illegal up to that point, you know, to that point, but literate,

dignified, you know, well-dressed and, you know, in his, in his power and stature, you know, and his his natural hair and all of these things that had been so deeply stereotyped, at he

claimed as his beauty. And so that, you know, is profoundly inspiring, you know, to me. And I think I would hope to all black image makers, you know, this place of like, what- how are we

really using our images and the creation of the images of ourselves to perpetuate, you know, the truth of who we are rather than the the lies that are being told. >>Faith: Can you talk

a little bit about the look of it about the look of it and what that represents? >>Nikesha: One of the things that's really, important to me and significant in my work, is the

process of making the pieces. Everything that I, I do has a lot of layers of process. I look at it that almost as part of the Afrofuturist take on it, because it is a reclamation of time.

It's utilizing time as an active partner in the process of the work. And so, for example, in the archival portraiture work, I wanted the images to carry over some of the story of the

decay and deterioration of the daguerreotype. So the daguerreotypes that you find, you know, in the archives often, you know, there are fragile and unstable surface, really. You know,

that's why the photo processes improved, because daguerreotypes were really fragile. They had to be placed behind glass and little velveteen boxes and covered so that they

wouldn't, you know, just fall apart in the sun and light. And so, I wanted to capture some of that fragility, really, of the original daguerreotypes in these large scale oil paintings.

And so, I actually imbued fragility in the process. What that looks like is on one of the large paintings, you know, I would- and I do this with all of my paintings. I start by painting the

entire surface black, which a lot of painters usually start on a white surface. But I start on a black surface. So, it's also grounding it in the, in the black history and

African-American kind of foundation of the work. And then on top of that, I will cover it with, like, PCP glues, which are, you know, also fragile and unstable. You know, and this is, again,

like thinking of the instability of surface. And then I would cover that with white gesso. Right? And so, what immediately starts to happen is more of a conceptual process. And physical

process happens where I have this black foundation, this unstable sort of surface, and then this, you know, white overlay that happens and that creates tension and creates a natural tension

that will crack and break and fall apart. I leave them outside so that in a way, history can play itself out on the on the surface outside of me, even in a microcosm that, you know, weather,

rain, snow, number of the big paintings have gotten caught in the rain and so, I have this big piece with all of these different layers, and then the rain would hit and just dissolve them,

and they'd start to melt off and crack and create new- you know, unbeknownst to me. But [Lively Music] I would leave them out and let things happen to them over time. And, and then when

that process is done, I have a space to respond to and be able to actually look at this broken surface and imagine the black bodies that would live on that surface, you know, and see the

figures sort of emerging out of it. And so that's the beginning of it, right? I after I see the figures and I paint them and paint on those already broken surfaces, and then I, you

know, the archival portraiture pieces are all finally embedded in a velveteen, handmade, hand-sculpted large box-like frame. And so, all of the pieces of the original daguerreotype are held

either conceptually or physically, in the big final work. >>Faith: Amazing. And putting it out in the elements, that's that's a really interesting technique, actually. Wow!

>>Nikesha: There's a kind of just giving up control over it, because I think as an artist, one of the things that's important for me is to not really claim control over it.

You would think as an artist, you have complete control. And for me, I realized especially working with our histories, that most of it is not- like, I have no control. I really- if I'm

doing my job right, I'm a vessel for, these beings in these images to exist in the world. Right? And they have to come in on their own terms. And so leaving space, for that to happen is

important. Leaving space for the world to kind of work on the pieces and the, [laughs] you know, hey, guys, And the ancestors to, to come through without me having, you know, much of a say

[both laughing] is getting better. [Hypnotic Music] >>Faith: So moving on, actually, to another series that you've done. I'd like to talk about the 108 Death Masks. What

inspired that- that sculptural project? >>Nikesha: You know, when you really step into African-American research and history, you realize how many millions of people were lost in

enslavement in the United States? You know, the official tally is 6 million people died in enslavement, here in the United States, on this land. And all of those folks were, you know,

unseen, un-acknowledged, there's no gravestones for them. There's no, you know, there's no places to to really hold the grief in the morning and that of these lives lost. And

so, for me, as a contemporary artist, I was dreaming up, how can I create a living memorial to these lost people, to the millions of anonymous, really, lost people in our history? And so,

through that study, I found the practice of death masks as a way that was used to honor people before photography. In Africa, there's forms of death masks and so many- such a rich

history, actually, in Africa, of honorary heads made for, for people who passed. But the practice of actually like making a cast of someone's face and having it to hold their to look at

the quality of that. You know, I wanted to recreate that for all of these lost African-American people. And so, I started a ritual process to actually make the work. That entailed, me in-

started in clay, the original pieces are in clay, over 108 days. So every single day I would sculpt a new face. [Chill Music] And I would do it in this process where I wasn't using any

models or any images, because there weren't any models or images. I wanted to say is true to the truth as possible in the process. So I was relying solely on what I call ancestral

memory, and that came from me researching all night, reading all night, watching movies, watching films, watching documentaries, filling my brain with every image and story. And, you know,

everything I could about African-American history of enslavement and then sleeping, letting it digest, and then working in the studio all day with no pictures. Just what came through. And

that and, you know, I included, you know, in it physical processes with the clay, texturing the clay with actual actions like, taking a piece of clay and hitting it with my hands to invoke

the feelings of scars from people being beaten or with chains or with leather, or sometimes I would roll soft silks or cloth into- rough cloth into the clay to stimulate the different

textures that they wore on their bodies. And so over 108 days, one mask at a time. I sculpted these faces. In the end, it was kind of exciting too, because at the end of hundred days I had a

whole room full. [Music] >>Nikesha: Then, In 2022, I was approached by the Equal Justice Initiative, in Montgomery, Alabama, and they were going to be creating a permanent National

Monument in honor of the last enslaved people. And they saw my work, and they're like, this is it! Like, this work is exactly what we've dreamed of. To be able to honor the, like,

to actually honor those here as a National Monument. Can you remake that in bronze so that it can last forever outside? And because mine were just clay and because everything was so

intentional in the creation of the ceramic work, I wanted to carry that intention through to the bronze work. Rather than sending off my ceramics to a foundry, I wanted to to carry forward

the prayer and the ritual and the deepening of the story. >>Nikesha: So I took all 108 ceramic masks, by myself, and in big trunks. I flew with them to Ghana, West Africa, and I met

with a master bronze worker. Who works in the archaic ways of the ancestors. And his name was Ibrahim Allagi Isaka, And he, just incredibly, over five months, worked with me and a couple

other West African, sculptors and artists together, to- and showed me how to basically create all of these works in bronze. But in the traditional ways that the ancestors did. So I was able

to, you know, work with multiple materials that, again, our people worked with, and doing is we did everything outside, you know, it was a completely natural, environment. We collected

donkey dung from the land, clay from termite mounds, we collected sand and blended all of that together by hand and made basically, like, a Adobe kind of masa. That was pressed into this

wax. And that wax, then, you know, the the shell, this clay was dried, reinforced, dried in the sun in Africa, you know, laid out in the sand on the grass, you know, and then, we built a big

fire and melted the wax out. >>Nikesha: And smelted all of our own bronze and individually poured each one, you know, right there in the ground, you know, outside. And then I worked,

you know- finishing and, like, and filing for months. Yeah. I got a chance to actually, I felt like- bring the ancestors from here home, you know, back across the ocean, back to the land of

our peoples. and, and then using the materials of that land, carry their blessings and the honoring and the memorial back. And installing that in Montgomery, Alabama, which, of course, is

one of the main capitals of, you know, the domestic slave trade, largest, you know, port of moving of enslaved peoples, human trafficking and so, to install this work there that is really

imbued with not only the original intentionality, but then this deeper relationality to West African culture and history, all of it. It was it was an incredibly significant thing. [laughs]

and so, yeah. So, the 108 death masks now are a National Monument in Montgomery, Alabama. >>Faith: So how do you see your role as an artist in amplifying and preserving the souls and

the spirits that were erased from the global narrative? >>Nikesha: By creating and recreating, these historical works, as well as bringing awareness to, the stories that have been

disappeared and that, you know, that is- yeah, that's the way that as an artist, I'm doing it, right? I'm coming- from this place of true- truly wanting to to help people see,

you know, see who we have been through time and who we are, you know, as people across the diaspora, you know, by- yeah, by this honoring work. [Music] >>Nikesha: And so I see myself,

Yeah, creating memorial work, creating, educational work and creating immersive work that that really helps people become inspired by and moved by African-American history. Funding for

Colores was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at

the Albuquerque Community Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, and viewers like you.