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THE BAHAMAS LOS ANGELES
April BEY
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY VISUAL ARTIST WHOSE WORK EXPLORES THEMES OF AFRICAN DIASPORIC SPECULATIVE FUTURISM AND ALIEN IDENTITIES
My practice combines speculative futurism with environmental worship and Black opulence to illustrate fictitious lands and places where diasporas can thrive.
No matter where we are in the world, we return to our Caribbean homes as a source of inspiration for our work identities and spiritual belonging. How have you crafted a kinship with the land, people, and culture of the Caribbean?
When I was little, I would get in trouble for picking flowers from other people’s gar- dens. But I would do it to give the flowers to people I loved, and I was fascinated by the fact that plants grow with pigment in them. Now I make a lot of large tapestries with plants in them, specifically plants like calatheas and other tropical plants that grow in the region where I grew up. Those plants represent a means of transport from Earth to Atlantica, so they’re in everything. The flower part of the plant, the fruit part, is always a Black woman’s fist with acrylic nails. That becomes the thing that you have to sniff to see if the plant is ripe or that you have to look at to make sure it’s the plant you want.
The Caribbean is a small place that significantly impacts the world. What part of your Caribbean identity or art practice do you think speaks to what is needed in the world right now?
Broughtupsy! Broughtupsy! That’s been the biggest thing. I still struggle with that. I’ve been in the United States for a very long time, and people just don’t have the same courtesy. America is so individualistic; people don’t care about whether their neighbor has heat or not. You get lost, and nobody knows who you are. I grew up on such a small island that I couldn’t do anything wrong without Miss Roll seeing me out the window, calling my mummy at work, and being like, “I just saw April going to the lodge. She’s supposed to be in school.” People looked out for you. It’s simi- lar in Ghana, where we say, “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” and “Good evening” to people we pass along the street. It’s to acknowledge that I see you, and if something goes wrong, I will be there for you because we’re all in this together.
In my work, I’m creating a planet where we’re all genetically linked and don’t have the ability to approach each other with anything but love. It creates a collective understanding. Just because it’s not a small island doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to look out for each other.
What does community look like for you as a maker living and working in the diaspora?
Financial proceeds going to the people in my community who are represented in the work. I was intentional about whom I worked with and where my funding went when I sourced fabric in Ghana. It’s the idea of leaving something better than you found it and being able to fund your own community, and of creating a self-sustaining community by using whatever currency you have and disseminating it.
What feelings are you trying to evoke through your work, and what do you hope viewers will do as a result of their interactions with it?
In my work, I like to show people what reality is. Sometimes they start questioning things, like, “Why do you have a three-hundred- pound Black woman in a bikini? That’s really provocative.” Why? And how? We’re thinking this way because we have these preconceived notions, but what if we didn’t even know what fat was? I present my work as if I’m an alien. As if I’m learning all these things for the first time because I’ve never experienced them before. I don’t even know what the word fat means. I think it makes people question where and how they’re approaching the work. Once they accept the fact that the work is by an alien and they have to start thinking that way, it frees them up to be a little bit more creative. So that’s what I hope people get out of it.
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