Nation Time 2020: Power and Protection from Racial Terrorism | Created by Betty Leacraft from Philadelphia, PA.

Nation Time 2020: Power and Protection from Racial Terrorism

Created by:

Betty Leacraft from Philadelphia, PA

Exhibit:

Racism: In the Face of Hate We Resist

Artist Statement:

This highly symbolic quilt calls attention to recent lynchings of POC since the murder of George Floyd. Lynching is still an unresolved issue at the federal level. All should be concerned that a reintroduced law, banning lynchings in the USA, is currently being held up by one representative.

My visual narrative purposely eliminates swinging bodies. It focuses instead on assigning definition via culturally encoded use of color, cultural symbols, body parts, blood splattered letters, and irregularly stitched “trauma lines” within the quilt's red and green quadrants. Eyes and fingers are metaphors peering and pointing to past and present victims of racial terrorism, and the perpetrators (their enablers), those who were silent in the past and are silent now.

The colors red, black, and green, arranged vertically, make up the Pan African flag representing solidarity among people of African descent, particularly in North America.

My personal collection of protective objects inspired the stylized Hand of Fatimah and Black Power fist. Two Ghanaian Adinkra symbols are centered within the hand and fist. The open hand displays a symbol representing a fence that surrounds a home, blocking out harmful influences, offering safety to all within. The raised fist also contains a fence reference, as links in a chain, regarding unity and strength within a group of individuals working toward the collective good of all.

2020
36" x 35"
Cotton hand painted by the artist, domestic cottons, Ghanaian cotton print fabric backing and cut out motifs, cotton batting, cotton/poly thread; machine stitched, raw edge appliqué, digital embroidery (Adinkra symbols), stitching in the ditch.