Ships and Still More Ships, 2015-2017
3 flags (red, black, green)
270 x 400 cm. each
“Three large flags with the words Ships, and still more ships, a phrase from the writings of Marcus Garvey, leader of the Pan-African movement and founder of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association), in which the author invites new investors to support the Black Star Line, a shipping company he set up to take Afro-American citizens who wanted to remedy the diaspora back to Africa, along with their possessions. From the year that it began (1919) to the year it failed (1922), more than anything the project helped foster a new de-colonial awareness among American black communities: ships and still more ships, helped to envision a return, as well as necessarily short-circuiting the colonial modus operandi of extracting material and human resources, by turning it on its head.”
Extract from a text by Matteo Lucchetti for the catalogue of The Raft. Art is (not) Lonely, 2017
Curated by Jan Fabre and Joanna De Vos, Ostend, Belgium.
Courtesy the artist and Magazzino, Rome
Ships and Still More Ships, 2017. Installation view at Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium