The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1

2018

Appropriation art collage piece

work-in-progress

 

The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1 is an appropriated video collage exploring how individual and institutional predispositions towards patriarchal models intersect and impact notions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation.

 

In the early 1500’s Spanish writer Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo created Queen Calafia.  In a time when colonization was in its infancy, he established a portrait of the powerful ruler of an independent, matriarchal, and militarized kingdom. In 2001 Disney re-appropriated her image in the now-closed a 23-minute multimedia experience “Golden Dreams” telling the history of California through several recreated scenes narrated by the fictional warrior queen. Introduced as the “Queen of California” she watched over the viewers as a witness, mother, and protector as the observed admirable and regrettable incidents in the history of California’s creation.

 

The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1 represents Calafia through the image of Diouana the main protagonist in the movie La Noir De (aka Black Girl) directed by Ousmane Sembène. In Sembène’s film, Diouana represents a break from Eurocentric conventions by providing films first African perspective on the tense relationships between the formerly colonized and colonizer.  In The Unauthorized Histography of California Volume 1, Diouana guides the viewer through historic flashes of the gold rush, white flight, and the LA Riots. It concludes that institutional use of structural violence, domestic violence, and violence in a community in order to maintain power and stability is a hypermasculinist model, which ultimately leads to weakness and instability.

The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol. 1

The Unauthorized Histography of California Vol. 1

2018

Appropriation art collage piece

work-in-progress

Runtime: 10:45