Yesterday's post closed with a look at a designer who will be featured in the Museum at FIT exhibition "Africa's Fashion Diaspora" (September 18, 2024 - December 29, 2024), an event documenting and celebrating Black histories and cultures. Among the other designs on display, there will be a Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center (B.A.S.E.C.) bomber jacket by Tavares Strachan.
In his practice, the New York-based Bahamian artist develops an interdisciplinary discourse between art, science, technology, and history, touching upon a variety of themes including cultural invisibility, displacement, and loss.
In 2008, inspired by the story of the first African American cosmonaut, Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., he trained as an astronaut at the Yuri Gagarin Training Center in Star City, Russia, and then set up B.A.S.E.C. (pronounced "basic"), the artist's version of NASA for his native country, in his birthplace of Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.
Strachan envisioned the project as a way to introduce science, technology, and experimentation to a community that has historically had limited access to these fields. He created a series of experiments and a program featuring visiting scientists. One of his initial missions involved developing a series of glass rockets, crafted from Nassau's coastal sand, and launched with a trial fuel derived from cane sugar.
Aerospace innovations and programs inspired Strachan's logo for this fictitious space exploration center, as well as a few garments.
As highlighted earlier on in this post, the bomber jacket, with multiple space patches inspired by the colors and iconography of the Bahamas and the Bahamian flag, will be on display at the Museum at FIT.
Strachan also created a workwear jacket with patches designed for each island in the Bahamian Archipelago, and a pair of Army-issued extreme cold vapor barrier boots, which are vacuum-sealed and can withstand temperatures as low as −60 °F. These garments and accessories are also inspired by the story of Matthew Henson.
The African American explorer Matthew Henson arrived at the North Pole in 1909 with Robert Peary, who then took all the credit, even though Henson was the first in the party to reach the spot.
Henson and Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. have been inspirations for Strachan for over 10 years. Following their steps, Strachan launched personal missions such as an exploration to the Arctic, from where he sent back a 4.5-ton block of ice to his childhood primary school in Nassau.
Besides, in 2018, Strachan launched into orbit a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a satellite containing a 24-carat gold canopic jar with a bust of Lawrence, symbolically ensuring that his spirit will still be present in the universe.
Fashion-wise, Strachan has also created a series of other designs including the "Invisible Histories Hoodies" celebrating figures such as Matthew Henson, but also Robert Smalls, and Shirley Chisholm (all the products are available from basecofficial.com and Dover Street Market London; prices for B.A.S.E.C. designs, as you may guess, are similar to those of luxury items...).
The theme of cultural visibility returns in Strachan's new exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery.
Curated by Hayward Gallery Director Ralph Rugoff, "There Is Light Somewhere" (until 1st September 2024) is dedicated to telling lost stories, celebrating unsung explorers and neglected cultural trailblazers. The event invites indeed audiences to engage with overlooked characters whose lives illuminate histories hidden by bias.
Monumental new sculptural commissions are displayed alongside striking large-scale collages, neon works, bronze and ceramic sculptures, and mixed-media installations.
Stories of erasure and remembrance shine a light not only on histories of colonialism and racism but also on how the past impacts the universal desire for a sense of belonging.
The exhibition starts outside the gallery with a neon work that declares "You Belong Here," a message for visitors to ponder, and a giant bronze head of 20th-century Black nationalist and Jamaican social activist Marcus Garvey, presented as if it were a relic of a lost civilization.
Garvey is also remembered through an installation on the Hayward's flooded sculpture terrace, featuring a large-scale replica of the S.S. Yarmouth, the flagship of the Black Star Line.
Founded in 1919 by Garvey, the shipping company aimed to facilitate trade and travel between the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa. The enterprise eventually failed due to mismanagement and infiltration by agents of J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau of Investigation, the predecessor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The central part of the exhibition focuses on Strachan's "Encyclopedia of Invisibility" (2018), which the artist describes as "a home for lost stories."
This work, the product of an immense and ongoing research project, features over 17,000 entries tracing people, places, objects, concepts, artworks and scientific phenomena that have been overlooked. Among these entries there are extraordinary characters such as Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese female pirate, and Rosalind Franklin, the scientist whose work was crucial to understanding DNA.
This alternative to traditional encyclopedias is displayed in exhibitions as a blue leather-bound volume.
Select pages from the "Encyclopedia of Invisibility" are presented in a wall-to-wall installation and collage-like compositions. As mentioned in a previous post, many of the individuals documented within its pages are found in Strachan's collage-like paintings, embellished with diagrams and formulas that contribute to the sense of obscure knowledge.
"There is Light Somewhere" also showcases several bodies of work where Strachan imaginatively reconnects with traditional African cultures.
In "Distant Relatives" (2020), he pairs tribal masks from different regions of Africa and Papua New Guinea with plaster busts of Black cultural figures from the West, including author James Baldwin, singer Nina Simone, and Jamaican-British nurse Mary Jane Seacole.
Strachan's painted sculptures feature a wide range of Black cultural and political figures, from South African activist Steven Biko to Ethiopian emperor Hailé Selassié.
These works, reminiscent of traditional clay ceremonial vessels, combine objects and symbols to suggest a spiritual or mythic dimension to these public personas. Tributes include a ceramic vase with Nina Simone's crowned head, revealing the Queen of Sheba within, and another vase with Biko's head bursting from a bust of Septimius Severus, African Emperor of Rome.
The exhibition also pays homage to other figures such as Nobel prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, gospel and blues guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and American gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson.
Statues of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Jamaican sound engineer King Tubby appear instead as if they were recently unearthed, further adding to the sense of rediscovery and remembrance.
King Tubby is not the only reference to music: the new commission "Intergalactic Palace" (2024) consists of a nine-meter-wide thatched hut inspired by Uganda's ancient Kingdom of Buganda and by the structures where the ruling kabakas (kings) were crowned.
Rather than a seat for a monarch, this structure contains a DJ music console adorned with figures of musicians from the past. Sheet music dangles from the walls and roof (tracks include "Hit the Road Jack" and "Johnny B. Goode") while songs, noises, whispers, and cries emanate from the decks.
Strachan's interest in exploration is further explored in the last section of the exhibition, which is dedicated to his own activities as an explorer and the creation of B.A.S.E.C. in 2008.
In a press release about the exhibition Strachan explains: "My practice as an artist is a quest to reveal hidden histories and to tell lost stories with a weight that matches the profound nature of the characters I speak for. I have always thought about making as a form of storytelling, a way for us to engage in things that might be more difficult to grasp during the normal course of our day."
Looking for a fashion connection? It goes beyond B.A.S.E.C.'s garments. Through his practice, Strachan embarks on a journey of discovery and recovery, a process that can inspire us in other fields.
By uncovering over 17,000 entries for his "Encyclopedia of Invisibility", Strachan shows that finding unsung heroes and heroines can open other doors that lead to further explorations and pioneering missions. Besides, his works are based on storytelling, and, as we know, a coherent and intriguing narrative is crucial for a fashion collection as well.
Image credits for this post
1 to 7. B.A.S.E.C. collection
8. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. You Belong Here, 2014. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
9. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Black Star, 2024. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
10. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. The Encyclopedia of Invisibility, 2014-18, and Six Thousand Years, 2018. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
11 - 12. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Invisibility Paintings, 2018-23. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
13. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Distant Relatives series, 2020. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
14. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Inner Elder (Biko as Septimius Severus, 2023. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
15. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Inner Elder (Nina Simone as Queen of Sheba), 2023. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery
16. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Game and Board (Marsha P. Johnson), 2023. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
17. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Henrietta, 2014, and Seated Panchen Lama, 2011. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
18. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Intergalactic Palace, 2024, and Ruin of a Giant (King Tubby), 2024. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
19. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Intergalactic Palace, 2024. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
20. Tavares Strachan, Lift Off #1, 2008-09. Two glass rockets, Bahamas sugar fuel cell. 15 x 73 x 23 ¼ in38.1 x 185.4 x 59.1 cm. Courtesy of the artist, photo by Tom Powel Imaging.
21. Installation view of Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere. Exploration room. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
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