State of Play

A photographic series on Obama’s Presidency (2011)

Moments of history, seminal moments, like attacks to our senses, are brought upon this body, via a screen and a voice - here, this side of the Atlantic in London, England, in this imperial ruin. 

This body, daughter of the postcolonies, witnesses the first black President elected in a Western country. It is unprecedented in my lifetime and our history. This body here, experiences a personal/collective moment of elation and justice. Obama the President and his family – have provided us here and now with a glimpse that some things can be righted, that sometimes justice can happen for majority cultures of the world who have experienced such wrong doing, and that we find we live amongst persons who really do abhor racism, and are willing to embrace difference. For some moments, I am made more comfortable, supported in my Southern, decolonised frame of reference.

State of Play (2011) are tableaux vivants as acts of respect. The media archive of Obama’s image online is experienced remotely but here it is as a person re-imagined with ‘permeable skin, penetrated by sounds, smells and memories that are sharp and diffuse, histories public and private’ (McGrath, 2007, p.40). Here, this body recognises what has been laboured for off stage. She attempts to recall and re-play different narratives of historical moments. 

McGrath, Roberta (2007). ‘History Read Backward: Memory, Migration and the Photographic Archive’ In Grossman A & O'Brien, A, (eds.) Projecting Migration: Transcultural Documentary Practice. London: Wallflower Press. pp. 36 -52.

Photographs from State of Play were included in the exhibition 28 Days: Reimagining Black History Month, Justina Barnicke Gallery/ Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto, Canada (2012).