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BLACKBERRY PASTORALE SYMPHONY NO. 1

Blackberry Pastorale: Symphony No.1

Video Installation at KALA Art Institute Fellowship Exhibit, 2017

Music "Fantasie Negre" composed by Florence Beatrice Price

Blackberry Lexicon, Letterpress and Blackberry Ink on Paper

Yusef Yomunyakaa's Blackberries, inkless intaglio print on paper

A Pastoral Hanging, 8 Button-ups

BLACKBERRY PASTORALE: SYMPHONY NO. 1, deconstructs the Black Femme figure and the colloquial Black phrase “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” The video constructs a cinematic narrative through the landscape of the blackberry fruit, positing the Blackberry as a figure with a distinct racialized function. The accompanying letterpress prints and shirts utilize the pulp of the blackberry as ink, resembling bodily residue or evidence of a violent act. Referencing Yusef Komunyakaa’s 1992 poem “Blackberries” and Wallace Thurman’s 1929 novel “The Blacker The Berry,” the installation explores the kindred history of Blackberries with Black bodies and the contradictions of beauty, shame, admiration, and contempt. The sound component, Fantasie Negre, is a composition by Florence Beatrice Price, the first Black woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer. This layered orchestral piano provides the video with a texture, rich with an Antebellum-like history and a queasy contemplation to match the choreographed destruction of the Blackberry fruit.

© 2017 Leila Weefur. All rights reserved.