fruto, giana de dier

excerpt from my Afro-Atlantic Art/Histories final:

Panamanian-born artist Giana de Dier’s work draws from family archives and national histories, drawing on the experiences of Afro-Caribbean migrants - particularly women - who came during the construction of the Panama Canal. De Dier’s intervention through collage has been compared to Saidiya Hartman’s critical fabulation; in discussing her methodological process, De Dier has said, 

“There are many absences and silences in history, and many interpretations that may not be 100% accurate. So, I connect that with how I interpret the information, including imagining alternative ways it could have happened. How it might have happened if it had happened differently, if the main characters could have been someone else. If the perspective from which this story is being told, the narrative is perhaps that of an external observer. Looking for ways to undermine the rug to think about how things could be seen and told from another point of view. 

Fruit (2021) derives directly from this approach. Hailing from de Dier’s series Decolonial Utopias, Black individuals are placed within idealized scenarios of lush natural landscapes, abundant riches, and quantities of gold. These scenes depict freedom from colonial domination, presenting ideas of a liberated future. It is intended that the viewer leans in to view the collage, immersing themselves in the natural world and the narrative that de Dier presents.