I am thrilled to collaborate with the epic Bokani and be commissioned by Kensington and Chelsea Art Week and Black Blossoms to create a new temporary artwork, inspired by Black womxn at rest. It will be located on a large hoarding on Freston Road, W10 and we need you to vote on your favourite design!
This digital collage design seeks to inform viewers of the seven types of rest available: physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, and creative and combines Birungi’s early use of African prints and Bokani’s vessel shadow collection.
Using the symbolism of a vessel, filling up your cup and connecting the necessity of water as life sustaining source, the artwork implores viewers to imagine themselves replenishing and offers myriad ways to consider embodying rest. Embellishing each vessel are contemporary African prints, indigenous African and tribal designs gesturing to the multiplicity of Black womxn we seek to address and imagine as restored.
Poetic texts are placed to offer and support spiritual, emotional and perhaps creative rest.
This design is pairs Birungi’s Black womxn figurative style with Bokani’s swirling paintings and bold texts, conjuring up a dreamy landscape where Black womxn assert viewers of their right to rest.
The Black womxn closing her eyes is adorned with a floral crown, paired with the text she is demanding her bodily autonomy.
The curvy Black womxn stretches and engages in a yoga and this design seeks to include curvy Black womxn in the popular meditative activity.
In an arresting and repetitive style, this design spells out and depicts Black womxn resting pairing Birungi’s Black womxn figurative style with Bokani’s swirling paintings.
The choice of bodies at rest will represent the diversity of Black womxn and normalize everyday Black womxnhood at rest.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Kensington and Chelsea Art Week are delighted to be one of 42 community-led organisations across the capital to receive funding from Untold Stories, part of the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm. The project is also supported by Arts Grants scheme Kensington and Chelsea Council.
The artists worked with participants from the local community who attend Homefield House Children Centre to explore ideas around rest as a source of nourishment and think about ways mothers can prioritize their well-being.
In response to the workshops, Bokani and Birungi collaborated to create three artwork designs which draw the attention of the broader community to the many ways rest can happen and the physical and psychological benefits this can have on individuals.
We ask YOU to review each design proposal and vote on them.
HOW TO VOTE
Please click on the link and read the statements by the artists about each proposal theme. Please place your vote once for your favourite proposal by 3 January 2023.
We encourage you to read further information about the artists and the curator, Bolanle Tajudeen as well as information about Holmfield House Children Centre, where the artists held workshops with womxn of different backgrounds to explore the concept of rest in contemporary society.
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