“Exploited Entertainment” (Tribute to Sarah Baartman)
4 feet and 11 inches tall, Fabric on Canvas, 2013

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This piece was created to honor Saartjie Baartman, a Khoi Khoi woman of South Africa. Derisively known as “Hottentot Venus,” her body was inhumanly exposed and examined throughout her life and after. This piece was created as a tribute to her, an acknowledgment of her story, a means to address the sexualization and brutality against Black women’s bodies, and as a personal healing practice. Clothing her in fabrics—this work is an act of claiming and reclaiming our own bodies.