Cambria Kelley - Moodboard of Dido-Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804)
Cambria Kelley, Moodboard of Dido-Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804)
Courtesy of the Artist
Message from the Artist: Cambria Kelley
This piece is part of a working series titled “I Saw Things I Imagined : A Black Speculative Collage ”. The title inspired by the song from Solange’s 2019 album When I Get Home plays with challenging the limitations of a vision board. Mood-boards are used to inspire, visualize, and manifest a number of things. In the same vein Black Speculative practice requires materialization by means of memory and imagination, “speculating” on what has been, could be, and will be. By using historical memory along with modern collage making culture, I am able to bring alive historical figures past and present.
The first in this series is Dido-Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804). She was a free biracial Black British gentlewoman whose body became politicized during 18th century England. As the child of the then enslaved 15 year old Maria Bell and Royal Navy soldier Sir John Lindsay, she was adopted by her uncle Lord Mansfield who was the Lord Chief Justice of England. She was raised as part of an aristocratic British family where she was educated and brought up as a “lady” within the social context of that time. Her body and identity became the subject of many as she was “free” from the confines of the transatlantic slave trade but still restricted within her own aristocratic and social standing. This moldboard gives back her power— maybe as far as of what she could have been as herself. Though we may never know who Dido was, this moldboard reflects her life at Kenwood House.
Message from the Editor:
Consider this as the first in a new series of pieces for A-Passion-Project. They will be artist features with a piece or section of pieces and a few words by the artist themselves. Cambria Kelley was an obvious first choice for this as we have already featured her poetry and are deeply interested in her visual work and where the two over lap.