Our national collective memory is short. We never stop to take stock of where we are, or where we’re going. Unfortunately, I think we’re doomed to repeat our mistakes. It is my job I guess to respond to this phenomenon. Polite Line Do Not Cross, can be read as a collection of notes from my current multiple work trajectories and narratives of black identity, race, nationalism and class concerns. These topics don’t make for readily saleable objects when it comes to art in a society that values provincial fare over more problematic ‘think’ and ‘conceptual’ works. PLDNC, is a is a combination of Finding Black, (on-going), Resting on our Laurels, 2016 and A Dress to the Nation 2017. Taken together, they form a personal protest against a system of commodification. Crossing the polite line of things we don’t discuss. The piece challenges the viewer to go further than surface appreciation and nostalgic yearnings for a time when things were supposed to be better. A time that never truly was.
