the pencil test

This work was inspired by the pencil test that was done in South Africa as well as in Zimbabwe, during the Apartheid. The pencil was put in ones hair to see if it stuck. It was suppose to determine whether a person should be classified as white, colored or black. This categorization deprived the classified 'colored' and 'black' of many advantages that white people were privileged to receive.

The artwork consists of two media: a video and a photograph. What you perceive above is a self portrait, which is the second part of the artwork where the pain embodied in the video is transformed into beauty.

To me blues, jazz and hiphop have been a great inspiration for the dynamic of this translation. The transformation of traumatic experiences translated into an art form is a recurring historical pattern found in African Diasporic art.