Wandering/WILDING: BLACKNESS ON THE INTERNET

Wandering/WILDING:
BLACKNESS ON THE INTERNET

NAVILD ACOSTA
HANNAH BLACK
EVAN IFEKOYA
E. JANE
DEVIN KENNY
TABITA REZAIRE
FANNIE SOSA

CURATED BY
LEGACY RUSSELL

4 NOVEMBER - 11 DECEMBER 2016

Who is the black flâneur? He or she is a loiterer. The roving that permits white fancy, white whim, white walking in our modern American cities, when observed in us and our children, reads criminal. Some black wandering the public has grieved: Michael Brown in the middle of the street, Sandra Bland on a road trip, Tamir Rice in the park, Akai Gurley up the stairs. In America’s cities, black bodies stand under many lights, and the effect is not liberating warmth, but that paranoia of surveillance.

- DOREEN ST. FÉLIX Tweet

Like a roving soul in search of a body, he enters another person whenever he wishes. For him alone, all is open; if certain places seem closed to him, it is because in his view they are not worth inspecting.

- CHARLES BAUDELAIRE Tweet

A call-and-response to The Peril of Black Mobility, a critical essay by Doreen St. Félix, Wandering / WILDING: Blackness on the Internet presents the work of seven artists – Navild Acosta, Hannah Black, Evan Ifekoya, E. Jane, Devin Kenny, Tabita Rezaire, and Fannie Sosa – whose work mobilizes an exploration of race via the material of the Internet.

Wandering points to the socio-cultural identity of the flâneur, mused on by Baudelaire as a roving soul in search of a body, later reintroduced into the academy by Walter Benjamin as a mark of modernity distinctly threatened by developments of an impending Industrial Revolution. Alternately, wilding is a slang word which came into mainstream use in 1980s New York, a dog-whistle term used to describe the gang assault of strangers that rose out of the controversial Central Park jogger case in 1989 wherein five teenagers of color were accused of and jailed for a crime they did not commit.

In relation to this event WILDING was the cover headline of New York’s Daily News on April 22nd, 1989 and became part of the fear-mongering language used to mark the collective socialising of black and brown bodies as inherent public threat and, in turn, justify increased profiling and policing of such bodies throughout New York City. With ongoing media attention turned to #BlackLivesMatter, a global movement that continues to grow online and out in the world in the U.S., U.K., and beyond, the reality of such policing as international phenomena has sparked a much-needed discussion surrounding freedom of movement, as well as race and class tied to the exercising of civil liberties.

Thus Wandering/WILDING presents a challenging dichotomy and essential opportunity for discourse, situating a spotlight on the privileged white body that Baudelaire’s roving soul has historically inhabited and that American culture has inherited and built into the consciousness of its cultural mythology with the ongoing desire to be on the road, the same roads and streets that are not equally carefree nor safe for all bodies that traverse them. What can the Internet do for the black flâneur? What freedoms can be found in the “publics” realized via the digital for bodies of colour? In what way do artists make new spaces for black lives to matter, online? Wandering / WILDING: Blackness on the Internet and the artists therein aim to inspect, and investigate.

EVAN IFEKOYA

Cowboy, Native, Other Or, How We Mistook
The Map For Territory (2016)

E. JANE

Mhysaxembaci-freakinme (2016)
Newhive website

TABITA REZAIRE

Sugar Walls Teardom (Homage to Dark Labia) (2016)

HANNAH BLACK

My Bodies (2014)

DEVIN KENNY

Ejovi Run Come Save We (2016)
Anti-wall climb paint on wall

FANNIE SOSA

I Need This In My Life (2016)

NAVILD ACOSTA

CLAPBACK (2016)

In collaboration with the ICA we presented Technology Now: Blackness on the Internet, a panel discussion led by curator and writer Legacy Russell examining the question: what freedoms can be found in the publics realised via the digital for bodies of colour? Building connections between ongoing conversations both within and outside of the UK regarding blackness and the material of the Internet. Speakers included academic Rizvana Bradley, writer and curator Taylor Le Melle and writer and editor Derica Shields. Listen to the talk here

Culture Now: Evan Ifekoya saw the artist in conversation with sound artist and DJ Ain Bailey, as part of the ICA’s Culture Now talks series.

NAVILD ACOSTA

CLAPBACK (2016)

On the 1 December Navild Acosta performed CLAPBACK to a live audience at IMT.

To accompany the exhibition we commissioned an essay by Aria Dean, with introduction by Legacy Russell. Read it here

NAVILD ACOSTA

CLAPBACK (2016)

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