Two Works #: Of Our Spiritual Strivings

- Blurb -

In 1903 W. E. B. Du Bois' s text The Souls of Black Folk made history as a work of sociological thought, and would go on to become a cornerstone of African American literature. In it, Du Bois combined music, history and memoir to advance a vital message of resistance in the uniquely dehumanising context of the so-called ' Jim Crow' era. It was in this collection that Du Bois, in ' Of Our Spiritual Strivings' , wrote of the ' double consciousness' experienced by the Black subject - a ' sense of always looking at one' s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one' s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity' . Refusing this fate, Du Bois passionately and creatively makes the case for the rights of Black people of the South to be treated with equality and justice. Over a century later, artist Christina Quarles brings new energy to Du Bois' s unfinished project, speaking to his melodious text with her own distinctive vibrancies of colour and line, testing and inverting the ' double consciousness' idea. Quarles, whose work is informed by her own daily experience with ambiguity, engages with the world from a position that is multiply situated.