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Artwork Statement
A Radiant Revolution I was inspired by graphic t-shirts featuring phrases such as “My Black is Beautiful", "Strong Black Girl”, and “Black Girl Magic”. The t-shirts are captured in a series of photographs that relate these expressions of empowerment to the history of head wraps. There was a time in history when sumptuary laws* banned Black women from showing our hair. However, the head wrap then and now represents courage, ancestry, collective identity, and a uniform of rebellion that signifies the resistance to loss of self-definition.
*Sumptuary laws are laws that try to regulate consumption. ... They were used to try to regulate the balance of trade by limiting the market for expensive imported goods. They made it easy to identify social rank and privilege, and as such could be used for social discrimination. The tignon laws were a result of the sumptuary laws.
The tignon laws were passed in 1786 by Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró and aimed to prohibit 'creole women of color from displaying excessive attention to dress in the streets of New Orleans'. The law stipulated that they must wear a tignon (a type of head covering) or scarf to cover up their hair. This was meant to cover any adornments that were added to their hair, such as beads and jewels.