Description:
text on sides and lower margin of image; partial view of woman's neck; brick cylinder hut with doorway; twisted hair braid
Label Text:
Counting has three images, arranged vertically, each image accompanied by text containing numbers. The top image is an anonymous black woman, again cropped just above the mouth, but with the lower edge of the image just showing the top few inches of the fairly low cut plain white scallop-edged shift she is wearing. Accompanying this is a list of five periods of time, for example '9am-11am', whose significance is not at all clear. Do they simply represent the fact that she, like most of us in the modern world, is a slave to time?
The central image is of a small brick hut, apparently a smoke hut in South Carolina once used to house slaves. To the left is the text '310 years ago', may be a reference to the time when slavery first became part of the American economy and at its right is what may be the number of bricks in the building. The lower image is a head seen from above, emphasising the pattern of braids. The captions, again related to the title 'Counting', read '25 twists', '70 braids' '50 locks'. As well as hair, both twists and locks could be intended to have other meanings related to the experience of slavery.
Hair and wigs were important in Simpson's work in the 1990s, with a number of works related to them. It generally is an important signifier of black difference and black pride, an area explored by a number of photographers, including more mainstream documentary work.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1992.2 |
