BLACK MAN

Every 7 seconds, on the body of a black boy, one of the 25 phrases born from the  collaboration with the anthropologist Katia de Col is projected with a white light.

… on a boat, packed for days, with a promise in my pocket

… the sun holds all its planets in a rotating embrace. Who fulfills this celestial function for men?
… minds and hearts withered by the dictates of authorized beliefs…
… our silence arriving through the centuries…
… I need to scream!
… farewell, my love, I’ll be back soon to take you away with me
… call center, bridges of renewed affections, of hoped-for future closeness
… every day I SHOW that I didn’t even notice the insult
… I’m not here to rummage in your homes or in your garbage! I am not your garbage!
… from the trade onwards their methods have never changed, they have only been refined!
… I evoke suspicion and disgust… cramps in my stomach… craving for sweetness
… mom, let’s go back to our country. My schoolmates don’t want to play with me…
… I am illegal, I would like to flee, but I can’t… I know I will lose the joy of watching them grow…
… how to dissolve the groundless hatred I read in your eyes?
… I wish I could paint the deafening noise to hear it a little less
… what if I had never left?
… what if I went back?
… what if I were rich? Would they treat me the same?
… I was born black, beautiful, and brilliant with an arrogant demeanor!
… Father, forgive me, for I have killed a part of me…
… how to be different from what I am? how to stop breathing? how to become invisible?
… I just do what I have to do and I am thankful… I miss the song of my land!
… if only they would listen with their hearts to the story of our life… no tears, no shame: I repeat it to myself every day.

Black Man
Performance, video projection on body, color photographs of varying dimensions,
2010 ‘The Vagabond can’t draw’, Spazi Aperti, Romanian Academy, Rome.

Performer: Moussa.