Artist-to-Artist Conversation
manuel arturo abreu + Jaleesa Johnston (3 of 4)
manuel (speaking about the show they had with sidony o’neal at the PNCA, presented by the Nat Turner project): sidony and I were having conversations around the commodification of Afro-pessimist theory, and this specific phrase: Why is it so difficult to refuse to refuse? Gesturing toward or thinking about Black people being always conscripted into a labor of politics, of affect, of criticality and refusal, negation, deconstruction, reconstruction. It’s always the task of Black people to do that work. We were just talking about how that’s embodied in people misunderstanding afro-pessimism and bringing it to the mainstream in this really weird way that actually just reinforces the plantation relation.
Listen to Jaleesa and manuel in this podcast, made in partnership with Michelle Hagewood of the Centrum Emerging Artists Residency, Port Townsend, Washington.