Dear Sarah, Works by Ayana V. Jackson

Sarah Forbes, 2016

 

by Artina Dozier-Gage

 

The latest showing of the works featured in Ayana V. Jackson’s Dear Sarah exhibit was held at the David Klein Gallery in Detroit. Jackson is an internationally known photographer whose work examines historical black figures, specifically how they are articulated in images. Jackson, in fact, rediscovers them, giving them new life by literally embodying these figures—using of her own body to reinterpret a historic image and, thus providing a framework for the viewer to share in the examination.

embody – to make perceptible; incarnate

Ayana’s seven images are fittingly titled after the various names given to Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a Yoruban woman born in the mid 19th century who as a girl was orphaned during warfare. At the age of five she was sold into slavery and later presented as a gift to Queen Victoria. What further makes Sarah’s story remarkable is that rather than hold Sarah as a slave she became Queen Victoria’s Goddaughter, and was later formally freed from enslavement. Bonetta later went on to marry a well-respected naval captain and an agricultural pioneer named James Pinson Labulo Davies.

evoke – to call forth or up; to bring to mind; to recreate imaginatively

The seven images featured in the exhibit are all generous in size standing over four feet high and over two feet wide. The pieces are printed on the purest of white German etching paper allowing the images to vividly emerge and with them, it seems, the spirit of Sarah Forbes Bonetta itself. I hope you have the opportunity to experience this beautiful retelling of a young woman’s story through Ayana’s ethereal images.