DANCEHALL MASSIVE
in late 2019-2020, shortly before the pandemic I was awarded a studio residency by Firstdraft, Sydney. I used the time and extra space to expand on an idea I had for a large scale installation. Focusing on the very first dance drawing I did, ‘Dutty Wine’. I created dynamic 2-d figures by splicing paper cutouts created from of my dance illustration. I also designed and created a ‘Dancehall Throne’, constructed from cardboard, then painted and collaged with elements from my artwork archive.
The work explored ideas of identity and place using the dancehall figures as a proxy for the global Jamaican diaspora. Jamaica’s national identity, knotted so messily with the Commonwealth and British imperialism, comes with both confusion and a healthy dose of nationalism. For those citizens wanting to travel away from the island it’s been a bumpy road. In recent years we’ve watched the Windrush Generation scandal play out in the UK, the unjustified persecution of Jamaican citizens and Jamaican heritage in the UK & US justice system and the battle for Jamaicans to retain sovereignty over their own national resources, most notably in the Goat Island and ongoing Cockpit Country cases.
The work charts the course of Jamaican’s attempt to assimilate into other cultures in ‘acceptable’ ways. This began on the island under British rule and continued when Jamaican’s were invited over to the UK to continue as British citizens at the time of Jamaican Independence in 1962. But for many Jamaican’s, especially those of darker skin tones, no amount of trying would stop the tide of opposition to their presence exhibited through racism and exclusion. To illustrate this I used a warm white toned card to create my figures, the white to allude to assimilation and the warm tone to indicate an optimism and excitement in the adventure to come. The warmth also illustrates the resilience of Jamaican people whose unofficial motto is ‘Wi Little but Tallawah” which translates as we may be little but we are strong.
I then placed the figures on small mirrored tiles, like little floating islands. The figures reflected in the mirrored surface, our diaspora could see themselves and appreciate the value of their culture and unite to create a space that was their own unfamiliar foreign lands. The final act sees the figures burst into colours in open celebration, their floating tiles larger and united in geometric patterns. Representing the cultural enrichment that we as a tiny nation, along with it’s diaspora, have added to the world and in turn the way the world has embraced and celebrated our culture with us.
The addition of the Dancehall Throne and Soundsystem Speakers helps to illustrate elements of Jamaican popular culture and activate the space in which the figures are placed. The throne also references historical folk culture on Caribbean islands that usurped cultural elements from ‘the oppressors’ into folk dance traditions to secretly mock and take back power.
We as Jamaicans and it’s diaspora are but a small part of many islands of global diaspora culture that has enriched nations and allowed the world to be a more colourful and exciting place.
