“Omen” featured in group show, EXPLICIT PROTOCOL

November 27, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

The piece, “Omen/ He Dances in the Courtyard of the Impertinent” was on display in Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca, NY from October 21 to November 1, 2013, in the group show “Explicit Protocol” Decades ago, “justice” was already an ambiguous term when applied to the carceral system of the United States, with its overt and inherent biases of class and particularly of race. In 1967, in a letter to his father, from solitary confinement, George Jackson had a clear concept of […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: abolition, Anarchist Black Cross, Angela Davis, Betye Saar, cornell university, Exhibition, explicit protocol, George Jackson, he dances in the courtyard of the impertinent, history, installation, James Baldwin, Jericho Movement, liberation theology, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, Mecke Nagel, omen, Paget Henry, politicized cosmologies, politicized theology, prison, prison abolition, prison industrial complex, rebellion, resistance, shango, slavery

Omen/ He Dances in the Courtyard of the Impertinent

November 26, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

Water by the side of fire at the center of the sky A strange thing, on the road to Teji Oku He strikes a stone in the forest, stone bleeds blood He carries a heavy stone upon his head without a cushion. Shango splits the wall with his falling thunderbolt. He makes a detour in telegraphic wire Leopard of the flaming eyes Lord who wears the sawtooth – bordered cloth of returning ancestors (egun) Storm on the edge of a […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: abolition, african culture, african retention, caribbean, cornell university, Exhibition, he dances in the courtyard of the impertinent, installation, justice, liberation theology, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, omen, orisha, politicized theology, prison industrial complex, rebellion, resistance, shango, slavery, survival

strange (& bitter) crop

September 6, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

Solo show, September 9 -13, 2013. Experimental Gallery, Olive Tjaden Hall, Ithaca, NY. Opening Reception: September 9, 2013. 5-8pm.

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: acrylic, Exhibition, installation, invisible, Mariamma Kambon, mass incarceration, multi media, plastic, prison, prison industrial complex, strange (& bitter) crop, strange and bitter crop, strange fruit

Pacotille and the Prison Industrial Complex

August 23, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

W. E. B. DuBois, in his posthumously published (1968) Autobiography, said “There is a desperate need … to oppose this national racket of railroading to jails and chain gangs the poor, friendless and black.” The United States has the highest level of incarceration in the world, with a disproportional number of people of color behind bars. More African Americans are under the control of the correctional system of the United States today than were enslaved before emancipation. Native Americans, in […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: CLR James, Correctional Industries, jail, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, pacotille, prison, prison industrial complex, slavery

Strange Fruit 21st Century – a Multimedia Installation

August 20, 2013 by Mariamma Kambon

Strange Fruit Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
 Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,   1939, a “progressive” New York City nightclub – the Café Society. Billie Holiday beneath a single spotlight. 
 Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
 Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.   The reality of American racism revealed naked and undeniable beneath that light, thrust into plain view by the force of unflinching words, profoundly interpreted by the legendary songstress with […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: enslavement, freedom, Harriet Tubman, Jim Crow, Liberation, lynching, mass incarceration, Michelle Alexander, photography, prison industrial complex, race-based oppression, resistance, segregation, slavery, strange fruit, The New Jim Crow