WOMEN'S WORK|VISIONARY | ZULEMA GRIFFIN |22
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| Zulema Griffin  | INK BLEACH

                                                                    
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ZULEMA GRIFFIN | INK BLEACH
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Ink Bleach is a provocative piece – mainly because

it provides new and reinterpreted information about

Black Beauty: emotional responses, economic

demand and supply and emerging social historical

knowledge (s).

Each time I screen the trailer, it is clear, that the opportunity for all people, particularly members of the African Diaspora to learn more about the depth and breadth of this mercurial construct we call Black Beauty and Aesthetics and how it embodies the social and historical challenges of this time - is key.

Ink Bleach prioritizes the knowledge, insight and courage of Afro-diaspora thought, it is beauty.

REBORN is pleased to present VISIONARY |Zulema Griffin| Ink Bleach
- Noelle Lorraine Williams| VISIONARY  | A Project of REBORN
This interview was conducted by e-mail January 2011.

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Women's Work | Zulema Griffin | Ink Bleach
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"We need to theorize the meaning of beauty in our lives so that we can educate for critical consciousness,talking through the issues: how we acquire and spend money, how we feel about beauty, what the place of beauty is in our lives when we lack material privilege and even basic resources for living, the meaning and significance of luxury and the politics of envy" - bell hooks, Art on My Mind

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NOELLE LORRAINE WILLIAMS | The trailer for Ink Bleach is moving and exciting because it seriously engages complex ideas about Black beauty, including its economic, socio-historical and future implications.   When I viewed the trailer I was impressed by its rigorous attention to new ideas and the diverse engagement of the scholars, artists, thinkers and artists.  How committed are you to procuring new scholarship around Black beauty and fashion?

ZULEMA GRIFFIN | I am very committed to opening up a new dialog about the ways in which the global society reads and responds to Black aesthetics. One of the ways, I believe this can be achieved is by creating a platform for new voices, as well as finding a way to cohesively have contradictory views be heard. The idea behind this is that if we rid ourselves of the idea of one Black voice, we allow everyone the ability to imagine the reality of many voices.

NOELLE LORRAINE WILLIAMS | I’ve noticed that even your design work encompasses themes around identity, history and power.  What is the most urgent aspect of the work that you do (design, fine art, film work)?  What connects them all? How do you feel that your work transforms the way we think about our socio – historical reality?

ZULEMA GRIFFIN | My work does encompass identity, power and history, but not necessarily all at once or all the time. Design, fine art, and film, all take a certain level of immediacy in my life because of the times I live in. For the most part, my work engages a conversation with the public about the concepts and legacy of couture and how those concepts translate to a contemporary, new media world. Moreover, my work engages traditional African concepts of fashion and ritual and how it plays itself in our lives. What does it mean when social, political, economic shifts manifest itself in physical expressions? This interdisciplinary idea about fashion, art, and performance, or rather the 'performativity of image', is one that is integral to and pan-African understanding of existence and that more than anything, defines my work. 

"The assertions made in the film Ink Bleach is that there is not a whitening process going on, just the illusion of one. Actually the world has become Black. If you closely exam contemporary canon's of beauty in whole or in part, as well as various artistic expressions, you will be hard pressed not to fine a significant African influence." - Zulema Griffin

NOELLE LORRAINE WILLIAMS | There is a tension about discussing “Black aesthetics” in the United States: first the economic implications of the beauty industry and the issue of exploitation of black women and second that the beauty industry becomes an extension to many of the neo-colonization or whitening process.  What exactly are the economic and social implications of Ink Bleach? 

ZULEMA GRIFFIN | The assertions made in the film Ink Bleach is that there is not a whitening process going on, just the illusion of one. Actually the world has become Black. If you closely exam contemporary canon's of beauty in whole or in part, as well as various artistic expressions, you will be hard pressed not to fine a significant African influence. I'll give you a few examples. The artist Sol Sax stated it best in the documentary, and I am paraphrasing, when he said that it was never the intentions of westerners when conceiving of western expansionism that anything other than western culture will be the dominate culture of musical expression, but it turned out not to be the case...Black people dominated not by force but by greatness.

When examining canons of beauty the astrocentric canon, that has dominated western ideals of beauty, is an African canon inspired by early explorers accounts of east African people. The urbanization of contemporary fashion is a direct influence of hip-hop aesthetics on the global society. Look at fashion before hip-hop and after. There is a stark difference not just in how people wear clothing on the street, but how the elite class broach daily dress. The assertions are serious, but I cannot predict the future. The art historian Annie Paul stated it best, and once again I am paraphrasing,  that you can but out any idea we want, but the Eb and flow of culture, or rather how culture accepts and receives information has more so to do with factors far beyond any one persons control.

NOELLE LORRAINE WILLIAMS | How can one learn more and support the project?

ZULEMA GRIFFIN | You can go to www.deuxconceptualistenoir.com or email me at ink.bleach@gmail.com