Nastassja Swift
Remembering Her Homecoming
Journey. Geography. Ancestors. Narrative. Through the exploitation of our bodies the stories of Black women are simultaneously invisible-ized and hyper-visible-ized with vicious regularity. The combined forces of toxic masculinity, misogynoir, enslaver shame, and man-made boundaries makes every step Black women take a potential minefield. Conversely, through our own agency, these tensions that bind the bodies of Black women are transformed into time-traveling signifiers, signposts at every crossroad, multiple living intersections bursting with our truths.
We are called to join a circle of Black women as they remember and reflect upon their lives and, in adorning the masks of their ancestral mothers, the stories of Black women preceding them. They move through and archive their own temporal/spatial travels by foot along the James River, from the trail of Enslaved Africans to Leigh Street in the Jackson Ward Neighborhood of Richmond, VA. In this way Nastassja is using her gifts to portray a “larger than life” way of seeing Black women’s path within the African Diaspora, lifting up their collective story of movement from continent to continent. From lands where Black bodies were stolen to lands where Black bodies were sold. From spaces that gave us all we needed to spaces that we created. Here she is offering a testimony to the truths of Black women’s bodies as they existed, and do exist, in Richmond, Rio De Janeiro, London and Lagos.
Historically, Black women have always rejected the visible/invisible binary discourse of our bodies by always seeing and centering our own narratives. I see Nastassja Swift continuing and extending this tradition through her wool renderings of the faces of our foremothers in their ancestral glory, then embodying them with dance, storytelling, song and film. This is an invitation into other ways of hearing and witnessing the journey of Black bodies. This installation lifts up the bodies and stories of Black women. It is a part of the continual resetting of the terms of the conversation on Black woman-ness. Nastassja Swift avails her understanding of being a Black Woman in theses lands through ‘Remembering Her Homcoming.’
-Evemarie Kigvamsudvashti for Wa Na Wari Gallery Guide
We are called to join a circle of Black women as they remember and reflect upon their lives and, in adorning the masks of their ancestral mothers, the stories of Black women preceding them. They move through and archive their own temporal/spatial travels by foot along the James River, from the trail of Enslaved Africans to Leigh Street in the Jackson Ward Neighborhood of Richmond, VA. In this way Nastassja is using her gifts to portray a “larger than life” way of seeing Black women’s path within the African Diaspora, lifting up their collective story of movement from continent to continent. From lands where Black bodies were stolen to lands where Black bodies were sold. From spaces that gave us all we needed to spaces that we created. Here she is offering a testimony to the truths of Black women’s bodies as they existed, and do exist, in Richmond, Rio De Janeiro, London and Lagos.
Historically, Black women have always rejected the visible/invisible binary discourse of our bodies by always seeing and centering our own narratives. I see Nastassja Swift continuing and extending this tradition through her wool renderings of the faces of our foremothers in their ancestral glory, then embodying them with dance, storytelling, song and film. This is an invitation into other ways of hearing and witnessing the journey of Black bodies. This installation lifts up the bodies and stories of Black women. It is a part of the continual resetting of the terms of the conversation on Black woman-ness. Nastassja Swift avails her understanding of being a Black Woman in theses lands through ‘Remembering Her Homcoming.’
-Evemarie Kigvamsudvashti for Wa Na Wari Gallery Guide
Nastassja Swift is a Virginia artist holding a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University with a major in Painting & Printmaking and a minor in Craft & Material Studies. She is the owner and artist of D for Dolls, an online collection of handmade needle felted figures. Outside of being a doll maker, she works with paint, print, performance, and fiber within her studio practice. Nastassja’s work is currently on display in a group exhibition at The Colored Girls Museum and her solo exhibition at the University of Michigan. She has participated in several national and international residencies and exhibitions, including her solo exhibit in Doha, Qatar, and fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center and MASS MoCA.
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Artist Statement
I am a multidisciplinary artist who utilizes fiber art and performance to create wearable soft sculptures that speak to womanhood, blackness and the body. Circling within conversations of marginalization, use of the black body and otherness, my work incorporates the idea of masking as a metaphorical tool to explore what it means to cover one’s face with another, questioning who’s being hidden and who’s being amplified. The mask themselves often acting as vessels of stories told through movement and in form, depicting the faces of our ancestral mothers as a way of demanding space for her and retrieving her power in the form of visibility of homage. Through fusing these larger-than-life size felted wool portraits with dance, I am able to shape experiences through storytelling and articulate self-identities in relation to ancestry. |
