#revoluntionary sister

[brooklynmuseum]

This July, we’re examining how artists in the Brooklyn Museum collection have dissected liberty, as a monument and as a concept, in the context of the United States.

Dindga McCannon, a New York City native, is a self-taught textile and mixed media artist whose art addresses her experiences as a Black woman in America. Active in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s, McCannon was one of very few women members of the all-Black Weusi Artist Collective, named after the Swahili word for blackness, and was a founding member of the all-women collective “Where We At” Black Women Artists. Her work is personal, and groundbreaking in the way that she seeks to challenge mainstream narratives of patriarchal, white-centric art by bringing forward her personal and political experiences.. McCannon said of her 1971 Revolutionary Sister, “We didn’t have many women warriors (that we were aware of) so I created my own. Her headpiece is made from recycled mini flag poles. The shape was inspired by my thoughts on the statue of liberty; she represents freedom for so many but what about us (African Americans)?”

Posted by Elizabeth Treptow Dindga McCannon (American, born 1947). Revolutionary Sister, 1971. Mixed media construction on wood. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of R.M. Atwater, Anna Wolfrom Dove, Alice Fiebiger, Joseph Fiebiger, Belle Campbell Harriss, and Emma L. Hyde, by exchange, Designated Purchase Fund, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund, 2012.80.32.

#reflectionsonliberty #liberty #dindga mccannon #art #history #artists #Black #blackness #revoluntionary sister #warriors #women #Black women #statue of liberty