Shifting the Culture: The Cultural Canvas
By Jordan Taylor
Preservation of legacy and culture within Black communities has always taken a unique form, whether it be through oral tradition and histories, artistic expression, or even spiritual connection. As Alexis and I considered our theme of re-imagining cultural preservation for the series, I immediately thought of my grandma and how many of her ways of creating art have been passed on to me. From teaching me to cook to helping me sew designs I conceived, my grandmother has always been an integral piece in fostering my understanding of identity as a Black individual and as a woman. By creating art with her, I was crafting a space where Blackness was centered and presented as liberation in the form of love and pure cultural tradition. Each lesson she taught me was a transference of knowledge and oral history, an act invaluable to our culture. She did not have the luxury of formal documentation or archives, but lacking these materials did not invalidate her expertise. Rather, it cultivated an understanding that there were no limits to creativity. It allowed me to know that the work I created would always connect me to heritage.
This is what we envision for the Cultural Canvas.
Although creative efforts to preserve Black culture began out of necessity, creativity in form and presentation has maintained itself as the culture of Black artists. These methodologies have proved themselves to be indispensable to self-knowledge, cultural connectedness, identity, and even intersectionality within Black personhood. The Cultural Canvas roots itself in support of this concept: each piece of art that contributes to, or is born from, Black identity contributes to the preservation of our multifacetedness. We view artists as documentarians of the current moment, creating a universal way for identity to be understood. Therefore, our intention, as writers, is to build an innovative and thoughtful space to recognize and show love to Black artists for contributing to the culture. Although pieces may be presented individually, all Black art intertwines to protect an intangible ancestry. As more Black artists share their work with the world, we are able to build a network, or sphere, of Black artistic intellectualism. We are continually redefining what it means to be an artist and create meaningful pieces. There are no bounds to the final product of work, because it will always be representative of the culture and how deeply multi-faceted we are.
Our desire is to support the process that arrives with achieving an expressive piece that speaks to the artists’ lives. During the course of this series, we will be exploring artists and concepts that reflect the creation, product, and protection of Black work. We want to create not only an intimate and safe platform for artists to be appreciated and recognized, but encourage our community to take action and uplift Black artists in all spaces.
Black creativity is abundant, it is representative, it is therapy, and it is history.