My inspiration for this collection is the 1991 movie Daughters of the Dust from the filmmaker Julia Dash. It is set in 1901 on the South Carolina island of St Helena, where the Peasants -a Gullah Geechee family who are descendants of slaves- have lived since the end of slavery. The movie follows their journey of migration north to find a "better life". The characters in this movie embody an ageless spiritual connection with the past. “The ancestor and the womb are one and the same” As I was watching it, I interpreted the water (their only available means of transportation to the mainland at the time) as a portal to a new reality.
Water can take on so many forms and have many different textures. It is also inherently a vital part of our lives in many ways like fashion. My goal is to recreate the textures and movement of water using various methods of fabric manipulation while paying homage to the historical and spiritual significance of water in Black and African communities.
