a cultural ecosystem designed for communal liberation | #blance by @dvonsmallwood. | @maisonblance on instagram and threads
Joined July 2020
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2,508 Photos and videos
1 Jan 2025
Kwame Brathwaite, "Untitled (Sikolo with Carolee Prince Designs)," 1968.
Celebrating Kwame Brathwaite. A thread.🧵
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1 Jan 2025
When asked to summarize his life's work at one of his last public events, Brathwaite poignantly stated, "I love Black people."
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1 Jan 2025
Due to this app’s (seemingly impending) demise, slide — IG: instagram.com/theblkren. We buildin’ ova there.
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4 Jul 2024
Today, "African American Flag" and Hammons' 2017 adaptation, "Oh Say Can You See" (2017) remain seminal pieces of political art and social commentary.
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4 Jul 2024
The works' legacy powerfully lives on as it continues to resonate with audiences and spur dialogue around Black pride and nationhood.
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4 Jul 2024
Due to this app’s (seemingly impending) demise, slide — IG: instagram.com/theblkren. We buildin’ ova there.
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4 Jul 2024
“Outrageously magical things happen when you mess around with a symbol.”
The making of David Hammons' "African-American Flag" (1990). A Thread.🧵
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4 Jul 2024
In doing so, "African American Flag" takes a commonplace item imbued with cultural meanings and reconstitutes it to reconsider notions of identity and belonging.
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4 Jul 2024
A Dadaist, Hammons' gesture of altering the national emblem of America allowed him to utilize and manipulate a readymade object to disrupt its original ingrained assumptions.
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4 Jul 2024
By Pan-Africanizing the American flag, Hammons aimed to challenge notions of nationalism and expose the hypocrisy of America’s professed ideals of freedom and equality.
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4 Jul 2024
He replaces the flag’s traditional red, white and blue with the Pan-African colors of red, black and green — symbolically representing the blood shed during slavery, the skin and pride of African Americans, and the wealth and prosperity stolen from their ancestors, respectively.
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4 Jul 2024
In "African American Flag," Hammons takes the quintessential symbol of America — the Stars and Stripes — and transforms it into a statement on Black pride and solidarity.
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