​Context -about subject

Cross-pathway lecture on research method by Dr Kimathi Donkor 

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Kimathi walks us through his practice-led PhD research which is entitled “Africana Unmasked: fugitive signs of Africa in Tate's British Collection”. He first presents how the British identity is entangled with classical antiquity (predominantly Greek and Roman), as seen in the architecture of Tate’s buildings and its collection.

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He then introduces the principal subject of his research: the mythological figure Andromeda. In Greek mythology, Andromeda was chained by a sea monster and rescued by a warrior. Being the Ethiopian princess, Andromeda has a clear black origin, but she is dominantly depicted as a white woman with western features in classical artworks as well as in popular culture. Kimathi uses Andromeda to address the entanglement of the ideas of Africanness and Britishness. I think Kimathi makes a sound argument with his thorough and solid research. He clearly illustrates that the depiction of Andromeda in Western art tradition is an epitome of whitewashing. In her 1992 article The Black Andromeda (also quoted by Kimathi), British art historian Elizabeth McGrath points out that Andromeda’s blackness is omitted because she was supposed to be beautiful and, for many of the artists of previous times, real beauty was incompatible with dark skin. Other examples of whitewashing include the image of the Queen of Sheba and Jesus Christ.

 

The resulting painting of Kimathi’s research features a figure whose skin tone and features are to be unmistakably recognisable young black woman from Africa or the African diaspora, and he actually asks his wife, who is a Londoner of Nigeria heritage to sit for the painting. In his work, one can see the impetus for a black British artist to address African representation in the realm of British arts and culture. When being asked whether there is a pressure for a black artist to address the issue, he says there is actually a pressure of not doing it, for the black artist to trace back the suppression of black identity in arts and culture in the past two thousand years, and the drive comes from within oneself.  

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I find myself resonate to the question, as I sometimes ponder whether there should be an urge for me to always make work that is rooted from my cultural identity and addresses to issues around it. I am one of the Hongkongers that is carrying the emotion burden from the widespread (but failed) political movement in 2019. When researching or attempting to make a new work, I often question myself whether the process would lead to an outcome that would successfully respond to the sorrow and sentiments aroused from the aftermath of that eventful year.