Mammy Was Here: dirty?detoxbareMinerals series, c. 2019
Dominique Duroseau
b. 1978, Chicago, Illinois; raised in Haiti; lives and works in Newark, New Jersey
Dominique Duroseau is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the complex and intertwined histories of racism and oppression, sexualityand identity, and what she calls “existential dehumanization.” The photographs presented in ESTAMOS BIEN are from her ongoing project Mammy Was Here. Spanning performance, collage, andphotography, the series draws from stereotypes surrounding the much caricatured maternal “mammy” figure as the artist’s evocation of the Black Woman. Using her own image to embody Mammy, Duroseau challenges the viewer to confront the contradictory demands and values ascribed to Black women. These images both obscure and expose, incorporating symbolic elements such as masks, beads, and gingham fabric. Using a neutral photo studio setting with a white background, Duroseau presents her body as simultaneously seductive and objectified, comforting and menacing, powerful and suppressed.