Water Graves considers representations of lives lost to water in
contemporary poetry, fiction, theory, mixed media art, video
production, and underwater sculptures. From sunken slave ships to
the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Valerie Loichot investigates
the lack of official funeral rites in the Atlantic, the Caribbean
Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico, waters that constitute both early and
contemporary sites of loss for the enslaved, the migrant, the
refugee, and the destitute. Unritual, or the privation of ritual,
Loichot argues, is a state more absolute than desecration.
Desecration implies a previous sacred observance--a temple, a
grave, a ceremony. Unritual, by contrast, denies the sacred from
the beginning. In coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Miami,
Haiti, Martinique, Cancun, and Trinidad and Tobago, the artists and
writers featured in Water Graves-an eclectic cast that includes
Beyonce, Radcliffe Bailey, Edwidge Danticat, Edouard Glissant, M.
NourbeSe Philip, Jason deCaires Taylor, Edouard Duval-Carrie,
Natasha Trethewey, and Kara Walker, among others-are an archipelago
connected by a history of the slave trade and environmental
vulnerability. In addition to figuring death by drowning in the
unritual-whether in the context of the aftermath of slavery or of
ecological and human-made catastrophes-their aesthetic creations
serve as memorials, dirges, tombstones, and even material supports
for the regrowth of life underwater.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
