Artist Statement: I'm The Man That Did Not Get Ahead.
On a tape recorder, I read a series of Langston Hughes poems. Randomly a gunshot is fired and I make my way to the ground to trace my outline in chalk. Langston Hughes's words give voice to the unheard:
"I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak."
The piece also explores the Critical Memory of The Black Body. "Critical memory assists the process of identifying similarities—shared experiences and attributes of being and becoming—among black folk not by presuming that black bodies have the same memories but by acknowledging that related histories create an experiential overlap." - Harvey Young
"Of what use is fiction to the colored race at the present crisis in its history? Fiction is of great value to any people as a preserver of manners and customs, religious, political, and social. It is a record of growth and development from generation to generation. No one will do this for us: we must ourselves develop people who will faithfully portray the inmost thoughts and feelings of the Negro with all the fire and romance which lie dormant in our history, and, as yet, unrecognized by writers of the Anglo Saxon race." - Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces, 1900
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