Real Princess

2017

Devon House – National Gallery of Jamaica Biennial

The Real Princess adorned with a Crown from the Mende people, the body is that of a Taino Zemi and she is accompanied on her head by a bird facing backwards "Sankofa," looking backwards to move forward.

This Real Princess challenges the European fairytale, "The Princess and the Pea," wherein a true princess shows her pedigree by feeling even the smallest discomfort intensely. But the Caribbean Princess story must acknowledge the deep grief of our colonial history. Each drawer represents different moments of complex History using poetry, artefacts and imagery to represent the plunder, pillage, genocide various atrocities, The 1937 Parsley Massacre, the Belgian Congo, the middle passage etc.

A Real Princess has to acknowledge suffering, torment and greed. Tears are what are needed. Mayan wisdom considers grief the highest form of prayer, believing that tears feed the ancestors.

Grief must never be surrendered or avoided.

Adoring objects recognised as a symbol of culture and civility, singing Anthems that are still foreign in spirit and substance and reading stories that herald the virtues of Empire, are exercises in self mutilation.

To move forward requires us to exert guardianship over our collective pain by revisiting our History.