Tracey Rose
Hard Black on Cotton (2019)
Shot by Rose in portrait mode, the viewer is introduced to a character who wants to channel spiritual power. Dressed in leopard print, the ‘Profiteering Prophet’ walks around a dark-lit room filled with objects, tools and symbols used for divination practices. He burns imphepho, an African sage plant used as an incense to call on the ancestors, invoking trance states and cleansing spiritual energy during prayer. While reciting a text – presumably a spell – written in classical Latin, another supernatural entity responds to him. The use of Latin suggests the influence of colonial European doctrines over traditional African spiritual practices.
Both male characters, one visible and the other invisible, speak in different Latin dialects, while the voyeuristic gaze of the camera follows and intrudes upon the sacred ritual. Through the spread of Christianity, colonial systems demonized traditional healers as evil witches and instructed newly converted Christians to stray from ancestral worship. The ‘Profiteering Prophet’ strives to connect with this heritage and revive denounced traditions, yet we watch him struggle. His failure to conjure a powerful spirit frustrates his desire to wield power and use it to gain wealth.
The film questions the role of greedy men who attempt to control access to spiritual power for selfish reasons.
Hard Black on Cotton is also the title for a composite of painterly and scribbled markings pressed in varying intensities by HB pencil ontowhite cotton paper – one of her rare series of works on paper. It reflects on Africa’s history and historiography while gesturing to the artist’s autobiography and family background. This body of work revisits the European colonial grab for power in the African continent, and as Rose’s scribbles increase in density, she reiterates Africa as a land perpetually divided in volumes of reparation, restitution, and unlearning.