From Julie Dash: A Juried Art Exhibition and Poster Art Competition, August-September, 2011

Call for Submissions: We Carry These Memories Inside of We: Celebrating the 20th Year Anniversary of Daughters of the Dust and the Black Art aesthetic of filmmaker Julie Dash

A Juried Art Exhibition and Poster Art Competition August-September, 2011 Hosted by The College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture

Twenty years ago, filmmaker Julie Dash broke through racial and gender boundaries to become the first African American woman to debut a film with wide release across the country. Daughters of the Dust is a highly artistic film that introduced many Americans to the history, opulence, and complexity of the South Carolina Gullah-Geechee culture and contextualizes it within wider discourses on race, class, gender, and skin-color at the turn of last century. Here Dash turns the camera’s gaze onto her ancestors and their rich culture that thrived for centuries and continues to do so today.

At the heart of the film is the story of a family that must come to grips with both its past and precarious present. The film opens as the Peazant family contemplates and celebrates their decision to leave Ibo’s Landing to embark upon a new life on the main land. Yet, Nana Peazant, the family matriarch and part African griot and high priestess, refuses to leave because of her deep reverence for the ancestors and sense that the north will not be “the land of milk and honey,” her progeny believe it will be. Here Dash employs the conflict between modernity and cultural tradition as one of the central tropes of the film. Other tropes include cultural memory, notions of home and belonging, the conflict between Black female identity and the Cult of True Womanhood, and the dialectic between Christianity vis-à-vis The Black Church and pan-African religious expressions. Additionally, the film’s central concern with Black identity and agency during the tumultuous Reconstruction years yields great parallels between the struggles for civil rights and contemporary issues surrounding broader human rights.

As the title suggests, Black women’s struggles, hopes, dreams, and place within society are at the core of the film. For these “daughters”, life is complicated by limited access/opportunities to education, work, and mobility. Additionally, the threat of being “ruin’t”—raped-- looms largely in the minds of all of the women. Eula has been raped by a White man and is subsequently rejected by her husband who feels his manhood is now in question since he could not protect his wife from her oppressor. Yellow Mary returns to Ibo’s Island with her partner, Trula, after suffering countless abuses as a wet nurse and prostitute. Thus, she has become the family pariah, having abandoned her family and adopted a lesbian lifestyle. Nana Peazant navigates the spirit and natural realms and holds sacred the family’s history and the memory and power of their ancestors. The spirit of Eula’s unborn daughter navigates the film and symbolizes the deep connection between the ancestors and the “womb”, or unborn children.

Dash’s cinematic post slavery narrative gives us a unique prism through which to examine South Carolina Low Country culture, namely that of the Gullah Geechee traditions, Black women’s rights, and race relations at the turn of the 19th century. Furthermore such dialogue provides insight about the rich cultural contributions of the Gullahs to American art, cuisine, and history.

The College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center, Carolina Low Country and Atlantic World (CLAW) Program, and African American Studies Program (ASST), The International African American Museum (IAAM) and the South Carolina Historical Society plan to examine the lessons learned from Daughters of the Dust and its influence in the academy and society. The 20th Year anniversary of Daughters of the Dust provides the space and opportunity to reflect on converging discourses of race, gender, and class and the impact they had on Black women’s lives, identities, and agency at the turn of the 19th century during a two-day symposium on September 16th & 17th, 2011. Furthermore, we hope to give thoughtful consideration to the special place Daughters of the Dust occupies within the academy—as a source of inspiration to African American scholars, students, and artists, an homage to the Black art aesthetic in the post-modern and post-Black arts eras, a creative expression of Black feminist criticism, and the untold story of a rich, but forgotten cultural legacy of our shared American heritage.

The Juried art exhibition and poster art competition encourages artists to examine the central themes of the film including, but not limited to Black female identity and agency, Black love, the Black family, and of course, Gullah-Geechee cultural traditions. The first-place winner of the juried art competition will receive $1000 and his/her piece will be featured as the poster art for the symposium. Additionally, the first place winner will be featured in an exhibition at The Avery Research Center in 2012. There will also be winners in each of the four (4) categories—each of whom will receive $250. Winners will be announced at the opening symposium plenary session.

Artists may submit work in the following categories: • Painting/Drawing • Sculpture • Fiber Art • Mixed Media Important Dates and Guidelines to remember:

• Submission Format and Deadline: Jpeg images must be received by May 27, 2011. • Submission Fees: $25 for 1 image; and $15 for each subsequent image up to 5 total • Artists notified of selection status by June 17, 2011 • Art shipped or hand-delivered to The Avery Research Center by July 22, 2011 • Exhibition runs August 1-September 23, 2011.

Please send all submissions to lessanepw@cofc.edu , Curtis Franks, Curator, at franksc@cofc.edu, and Karole Turner Campbell at ktcsart@gmail.com with your name, institution, title, email address, submission title and format, along with an artist’s statement, and recent cv. Please put “Daughters proposal” in your subject line.

Artists are responsible for getting their work to Avery, as well as the return for all accepted pieces.

Information regarding registration, lodging, and symposium schedule will be available on the Avery Research Center’s website beginning in March 2011.

Contact information: Patricia Williams Lessane PhD, Executive Director The Avery Research Center at The College of Charleston 125 Bull Street Charleston, South Carolina 29424 (p) 843-953-7234

rasx()