FEAST On Our FAMINE:
MFA THESIS
FEAST On Our FAMINE: MFA THESIS
PRATT Institute
MFA in Writing (Thesis on Design)
Graphic Designer | Visual Art Installation
My Poetry is transformed into a dinner setting designed around the beautification + elitism of colonial capitalism + the effect it has had + continues to have on African-Americans through the viewpoint of a West Indian American, living in the U.S. for over twenty years.
PRINT POSTERS
This artwork imagines a historically imperial FEAST on the FAMINE of Africanism, the blk ingenuity of survival. It uses a cross-section of the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes quotes) + Trinidadian-West Indian dialect with modern-day texting linguistics to highlight the author’s intersectionality within current times as a form of self-preservation. I designed this place setting to further ask the questions: Who has a seat at the table? Why do generations of blk folk know how to set this table but may never have a seat at it? How many people suffer at this Feast On Our Famine? What are the economic, social + emotional cost of blk death for all in America?
OVERVIEW
Problem-solving as an access point to mobilizing myself, various people, movements, + creative situations are the catalysts for my inventions. I treat writing + the table “Feast On Our Famine,” which in itself is a poem, as a picture frame wherein people can digest a penned narrative developed to help picture emotionally charged artwork.
FINAL PLACE SETTINGS
The concept started with a three-poster document, designed in Illustrator using Photoshop + finalized in InDesign in the spring of 2017. Then a critique discussion was had with M.F.A. cohorts + professors as to the implications + implementation of the design as an installation. Converting the poster into an actual life-size place setting was the outcome.
