12 months around the world

2023-24 WATSON FELLOWSHIP

From August 1, 2023 to August 1, 2024 Mouminatou Thiaw will be conducting research abroad as a solo traveler to spotlight formal elements in SubSaharan African Art as a Visual Love Language for Africanity. She is sent forward as a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, and representative of her alma mater, Scripps College.

“The Thomas J. Wat­son Fel­low­ship is a one-year grant for pur­pose­ful, inde­pen­dent explo­ration out­side the Unit­ed States, award­ed to grad­u­at­ing seniors nom­i­nat­ed by one of 41 partner institutions” (Watson Foundation). It is an interdisciplinary, full emersion opportunity to pursue the topic of your dreams on a global scale.

ABOUT MY WATSON

I will explore formal elements - such as color, line and scale - in Sub-Saharan African Contemporary Art, as a Visual Love Language that builds constitutive representations of Africanity (by which I mean parts of a larger expression of Africanness that cannot be wholly articulated or accurately re-presented). Across art mediums, I will lean on the theoretical frameworks and pedagogues of AfroEcology, Womanism and Media Representation to share how Diaspora-Love artworks engage critical thinking about race, class, environment, family and gender. My analysis aims to expose capitalist-racist-patriarchal fabrications of race as a biological determinant, and to explore the supernatural qualities of creativity. I will travel to Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, South Africa, France and Germany. Each country I have chosen contributes to my research of context, content, form and style in contemporary Sub-Saharan African Arts as I make meaning of Visual Diaspora-Love Languages.

MORE ON MY TOPIC

The development of essentialist bio-logics by human and natural scientists during the Age of Reason, 17th through 18th century, constructed the notion of race and racial hierarchy through image and language. Racism as a constructed bio-logic claims that the essence of a people can be generally categorized by morality, intelligence, culture, sexuality, art, and beauty; and that those categories fall into a natural hierarchy that can be deciphered by the physical appearance of said peoples. Racism as an ontology insists that this connection is a scientific discovery of nature, when in actuality, it is a man-made system of thought that is upheld by opposing binaries and enforced by interlocking systems of domination. These include Hollywood media, the pornography industry, the prison-military complex, land occupation, and neoliberal colonialism. Scientists of the Age of Reason - physiognomists, psychologists, phrenologists, anthropologists, biologists - created the notion of race insinuated through spoken, written and visual languages to articulate white supremacy in opposition to Africanity. Whiteness as a binary opposition to Blackness. Color, line and scale in contemporary African Art will be the main formal elements I focus on to spotlight Visual Love Languages whose work is constitutive of Africanity and treats race as a floating signifier (a logic and notion that is signified in visual representations of race and made meaning of by the viewer).

My perspective in this research is a furthering of my undergraduate learning about Race and Media from the theories of Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, June Jordan and my Christian orientation. My sincerest gratitude to the incredible professors from the Africana Studies and Media Studies departments at the Claremont Colleges, from whom I've learned far more than could come through any textbook. I could not have received this honor without the council of the Holy Spirit, and I must thank God for His faithfulness to me. Thank you also to my family, friends, church, and mentors who were the wind in my sails; and of course, thank you to the Watson Foundation selection committees for seeing me and supporting my research.