BLACK DIVINITIES
“The earth resembles Black people in aesthetic. A brown/mud skin, and
winding trees for hair.”
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03.11.23
I do believe that an apocalypse is a culturally developed idea that expresses the moral fear of that society.
__ Amir Khadar
Photographs by Amir Khadar
Interview by Mariam Sako Armisen
A conversation with the multidisciplinary artist, Amir Khadar on ancestral practices, artistic practices and diasporic ecology.
Mariam Armisen: Amir, it’s wonderful to be having this conversation with you. I’ll jump into it. Black womxn, blackness and the ecology. I would like to start by asking you one of your own questions from your thesis catalog. “Do we disrespect the earth because it looks like a Black woman?” The earth as a black body and their shared degradation. What were you feeling in your own body? How does the exploration of this question influence your artistic practices?
Amir Khadar: hat body of work was created from closely interrogating things I was feeling about/in my body. I was in an academic environment but internally I was trying to find a way to approach concepts like Black identity, ecology, and mythology that were somatic and not just intellectual. As an artist, I spend a lot of time looking at my own body for reference. I notice really small things, and this line of thinking started with my palms. I was looking at them, and how they’re peach on one side and brown on the other. I noticed how I felt disconnected from the part that was peach, despite it being in such close proximity to the brown. I thought of the concept of discoloration and didn’t know how we decide which color is the principal and which is ‘discolored’.
Our ancestors existed outside of that concept and lived in healthier societies that weren’t destroying the planet or its people. So, through the art, I was trying to think of how we can release ourselves from the ‘human’ category and what else we could be.
I also often reference images of the earth in my collage and I saw the topography of the earth represented in what we called ‘discoloration’. It was very easy to project the color schemes from the earth onto Black/African bodies and I was deeply questioning what again defined discoloration both on the earth and in our skin. I drew connections between skin-brightening products and the curation of Earth through terra-scaping. Was it the same line of thinking that created this hierarchy, that decided what is undesirable (discolored) and what's desirable(true)? This led me to question if the system of racialization that creates Black as an identity, and makes things like our hair textures and color undesirable was also applied to the earth and the things that occupy it? I was feeling a divide between who we are in an uncurated and natural state vs. what society curates us to be.
Mariam: How do you make the link between your observations of the degradation of earth and the disrespect towards black bodies?
Amir: Amir: I begin to understand racialization as a way to maintain the status quo on how to treat black people. A part of what is used to degrade black people is our proximity to earth. For example, there is a great disdain for the color brown, especially its association with dirt/dirtyness. Even if dirt is supposed to be brown as a signifier of it’s health and function, we have come to associate dirt with a lack of cleanliness. There is a binary opposition (Black-Dirty, white-Clean) that pitches black against white so that all that racialized as Black are viewed as subhuman and white can occupy a superhuman category. It places us in a position of trying to achieve humanity/whiteness by altering our natural forms. Personally, I don't think humanity as a concept is something to aspire to. I don’t find anything wrong with looking like healthy dirt. It was another example of how the same system that created racism felt like the same system that was used to degrade the planet.
Mariam: Let's move to an exhibition you had in 2021 when you expressed the need for black folks to move beyond the body and explore other ways of being. Could you elaborate on that a little bit more? What other ways of being you, yourself have been exploring both through your arts and daily life?
Amir: I was trying to get at the concept/category of humanity. Humanity as a concept intentionally excluded Black and Brown people. It was specifically created to elevate white people above all other groups, so that we had to aspire to their concept of humanity. When I say humanity, I don’t mean personhood, but the set of traditions, regimens, religion, etc. that separate us from non-human entities like plants and animals. I think this concept puts us on a track where we are trying to reach humanity, but it is something we will never do. Rather than trying to assimilate to that category, I think as black folks we need to change direction. Our ancestors existed outside of that concept and lived in healthier societies that weren’t destroying the planet or its people. So, through the art, I was trying to think of how we can release ourselves from the ‘human’ category and what else we could be.
Mariam: How did that find its own expression in your work? Those other ways of freeing ourselves from that euro-centric straitjacket-concept of the human being?
These religious traditions allowed me to start imagining myself outside of the black/white binary. They showed me there is so, so, so more to humanity. It made being an artist make sense.
Mariam: Then you went on to become a multidisciplinary artist. I'm curious as to why weaving is one of your preferred mediums. And also your wish to create a body of work through weaving to “depict an eco black feminism informed apocalypse.” That sounds brilliant! What does an “eco black feminism informed apocalypse” look like? Where are you in its exploration/conceptualization?
Amir: I learned how to weave when I was about ten. There was something about the repetition of the motions that spoke to me and it still does. I also just love learning about weaving and where it came from. It's such a complex process in a very simple framework. It is an example of indigenous technology and every culture has a way of doing it. It doesn't seem like there is a geographical or cultural origin of weaving. The oldest woven fabric artifacts show up in many distant places, and many indigenous cultures were doing it at the same time. The confusion of its origin just adds more to the magic of it. Insinuating it is somewhere in our nature as people to weave. The first computers were also based off of the automated jacquard looms. They used a punch card system that predated punch card computers. It is also the first example we have of a software/hardware relationship in the western canon. Weaving is just such an expansive system.
When I weave, I feel like I'm connecting to something that feels old and ancestral. My grand-ma wove baskets. The moment I learned basket weaving, it felt like I already knew what I was doing, like I had been doing it forever. I was like, this feels good! I just took notice. I take notice of the things that feel good because a lot of things don't. (Laugh).
Mariam: Could we stay a little more on your own spiritual journey?
Amir: My mom is Pentecostal Christian and my dad is Muslim. I don't think my upbringing was specifically religious. I identify more with Islam so I pursued that individually. I think my artistic practices actually came from resisting a lot of the teachings I received. I started to take interest in things that these religions deem demonic, lowly or evil because, again they were racialized so I felt closer to them. I really like Octavia Butler. I think her books address those things in ways that were revolutionary to me when I first read them. The first book of hers I read was Wild Seed. That book taught me new ways to imagine and approach fantastical/mythological concepts. It was a counter-narrative about a Black woman who had agency through her powers, and it was the first time I read a narrative about a displaced African that wasn’t rooted in slave or colonial narratives. I feel like the same energy she used to resist taboo and imagine the characters in that book was very similar to the energy I used to resist religion. I had to create counter-narratives to understand who I was and explain how I was taking up space. Overall, it greatly influenced my art practice because I stopped trying to justify what I felt and learned to unapologetically center Blackness. Specifically, being American and a statistical/social minority, our blackness is always in binary opposition. That we only exist as black because they are white people. That is a very pessimistic perspective, so I needed to create a new optimistic origin. These religious traditions allowed me to start imagining myself outside of the black/white binary. They showed me there is so, so, so more to humanity. It made being an artist make sense.
When I weave, I feel like I'm connecting to something that feels old and ancestral. My grand-ma wove baskets. The moment I learned basket weaving, it felt like I already knew what I was doing, like I had been doing it forever.
Moving into the tapestry series. There was one weaving machine at my old school called the TC-2 automated heddle loom. It's partially automated so you can create a file to be woven on the computer, and it will recreate the image for you. It's computer-automated but you still have to hand-weave and pass the shuttle back and forth. With it I could take my digital illustrations and convert them into weavings. So I was letting the tool inspire me and began looking for historical references for weaving. It’s another craft where European arts are considered the reference, so I was looking at old French tapestries. But even in their hierarchy, tapestry arts are considered feminine, and most have been disregarded and disposed of. Some of the most beautiful tapestries created have apparently just been thrown away because they were considered rugs, which was absurd to me. I felt another connection to this craft, since it again had been placed low in power hierarchies.
There is an apocalypse tapestry series, the largest preserved tapestry series ever, in the South of France, in Angers. I was looking at them and started thinking about what an apocalypse looks like. They were inspired by revelations in the bible. I do believe that an apocalypse is a culturally developed idea that expresses the moral fears of that society. It also reveals our ideas of utopia, again through binary opposition. So I was looking at the apocalypse depicted in that series and was thinking this is not what an apocalypse looks like to me. (Laugh). I was like, this is very much exactly what they are afraid of, which was nature taking over, animals were more dominant than human beings, and buildings crumbling. They had these giant dragons everywhere. An expression of fear of things that are bigger than them and their inability to eradicate them. There were untamable fires everywhere again representing a deep fear of what they could not control.
When I was thinking of a Black eco-feminist apocalypse, I was like, what would it look like for us to lead an apocalypse? Not actually ending the world but just ending the status quo that society is.
From that observation, I had two different ways of thinking when approaching my in- progress tapestry series. When I was thinking of a Black eco-feminist apocalypse, I was like, what would it look like for us to lead an apocalypse? Not actually ending the world but just ending the status quo that society is. Like, building a garden is an apocalyptic event for some people. I'm from Minnesota. I remember when I was younger, a group proposed to build a community garden where people in our neighborhood could grow whatever they wanted and share the harvest. It seemed like people literally believed the world was ending. They thought a community garden would bring people form outside of this community they worked to curate, and ruin the aesthetic of the parks and gardens they had worked so hard to maintain, They were afraid we were going to start to build connections with each other and the earth, and that was the exact opposite of what that neighborhood was built of. So, there was a piece of that neighborhood that was being destroyed by building a community garden. I was thinking, how do I illustrate the absurdity of that reaction? I was thinking about large-scale things.
Mariam: I would like to come back to a black woman in your life. Your grand-mother. You mentioned her twice. It sounds like she had quite an influence on your artistic journey. Could you share a little bit about her, her influence in your life and on your art?
Amir: She was a very important presence. That's my grand-ma Mary. She was the only biological grand-parent in my life. She was very involved in raising me. She definitely taught me about art. She gave me the language for understanding what art was without directly giving me the word ‘art’. I don’t remember her using that word. She taught me how to sew, she taught me about cooking, which I consider a very important art form. I think she taught me how to be confident in my creations, how to create things with use and functionality. I do cite her as the beginning of me as an artist still. She also helped me draw. She would give me pieces of paper and would give me candy whenever I gave her a picture. Those were my first awards (Laugh). As I got older, I learned to appreciate what she taught me more and more. Learned the foundations of my hand-skills and resourcefulness from her. I don't think I considered myself an artist until when I decided to go to art school, but before that I was creating things all the time.
Mariam: One last question. I do want to talk about the theme of ecology, which runs through your work. Specifically, diaspora ecology and the place of movements in your art. I never heard of diaspora ecology.
Amir: I don't know if I've seen that string of words either. I just made it up. (Laugh). I was trying to explore a relationship with the environment from people who have been displaced and marginalized in so many ways. My parents first went from Sierra Leone to the UK then they came to the USA. Both times they experienced the material culture of three distinct environments. I also have significant Lebanese ancestry and can’t even imagine what my ancestors' migration patterns were. I know with every place they went they had to establish a relationship with their environment, the people, the animals, and the things that were around them and give it meaning.
I was just fascinated by how there were through-lines in most of the black diaspora, the way we treated certain things and concepts similarly. I would start with hair. The ease with which we would put oil on our hair was something I was thinking about. We don't seem to have a problem with putting things from earth on our bodies. We are just ready to put shea butter on our skin. How do we come to that conclusion, and why has it stuck? When the pandemic started, a lot of us were making potions with ginger, garlic, pepper, and lemon, and I wondered how we internalized those recipes and relationships to plants, despite being displaced from our origins. Most of the ecology and environment movement is a very very white field, or at least the way I've experienced it. I started thinking about how to bring the intersectionality of all these things into the concepts because despite being extremely eurocentric, ecology and eco-feminism were very intriguing to me. I think they were very intriguing lines of thought and internally challenged colonization in their own ways, it is not all empirical, all statics and numbers. It is a lot about feelings and observations.
With Black Eco-feminist ecology I am trying to depict the world the way I see it from a lens that is gender-queer and black. I know Animism was a prominent thought in most indigenous ideologies, the idea that everything was a sentient being. I took very easy to this idea, and incorporated that into my life, and I think because of my marginalization, and my categorization as sub-human, it isn’t hard for me to see how a rock or river is also sentient in the same way I am. Animism is so present in a lot of African mythologies, in a lot of the stories I was told. So, when I started my own art, I was thinking about how do I depict a tree as something important in the narrative, and how do I center the animals at the level of the humans. And, I'm still working on that.
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