What is your vision for the future of a black child?
Meet the baby
the story
Each artist was given the same linocut of a baby. The baby was carved originally as a part of the print called “The System.” The blanket was orange and emblazoned with DOC from the Department of Corrections (D.O.C.). The child was born already judged, and sentenced to life in a prison industrial complex.
As powerful as that message was, it doesn’t fully convey my aspirations for my black children or any black child. I look at my own children…my perfect baby girl who is as smart as her mother, that dances when she cleans her room, and my sweet, beautiful boy that plays soccer and laughs with innocence and love. I look at them and feel hopeful, fearful, excited, and paranoid. I want to protect them while also letting them free into the world to become who they are destined to be. They belong to the world as much as they belong to me. The black child's fate rests in the village's hands which will feed into them and help them survive.
A Simple Question
In the Black Baby Project, the village is represented by all the artists embellishing the prints. The first batch of 20 black baby prints were given to a diverse group of artists. They are mothers and fathers, Canadian and Iranian, a tattoo artist with years of experience, and young painters just beginning to find themselves. They took this empty cipher and filled it with their own messages. I asked them one simple question:
“What is your vision of the future of a black child born right now?”
This show is their answer. It is a small taste of what is to come as this project grows and adds more voices.