Drapetomania's Tale
CoCo Harris
"I always felt that if you work with the three temporalities --past, present, and future-- that you attempt to transcend time..."
"...but of course art has a great deal to do with imagining the unimaginable."
prologue
part I: the water bringing us
The Water Bringing Us (series), 2022; photographs, plastic “Zulu Lulu” (enslaved) drink stirrers, resin on wood
part II: igbo landing as portal
part III: liberating souls
Today we can access the portal they created, and bear witness to the liberating magic sourced by the spiritual revolt of marching into the water.
A door was opened –and the sky’s the limit.
epilogue
Today’s Igbo Landing
Though it may be worth a thousand words,
there’s even more this picture does not tell you…
It does not tell you that it was taken on Memorial Day on St Simons Island, GA.
It does not tell you that during (and well-after) slavery, this now-resort isle was once
populated by Black Bodies who cultivated the world’s most regarded strains of
cotton and rice
It does not tell you that black bodies are no longer prevalent on the island, or why
It does not tell you that black bodied brother Ahmed Aubrey was brutally gunned down in nearby Brunswick
It does not tell you of the nearby Igbo Landing site where newly imported enslaved captives
marched into the water, chanting, chained together…taking to the water rather than land as a slave…No. Not the proud, noble, dignified Igbo
Even if it shows you all that Black Joy,
It does not tell you that these are royal Igbo princesses who are forever connected to this land by way of their Georgia-born momma
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