Faculty of Arts & Science

Visual and Critical Studies

Shannon Molenaar

Lost, But not Forgotten: Memory/Forgetting and the Black Diaspora

Presentation to Class, April 2023.Thinking through the relationship between Dionne Brand's text, A Map to the Door of No Return (2001) and Christina Sharpe's Notes to Self Video Series (2014 ongoing). Both text and art are considered through Jenny Sharpe's article, "Immaterial Archives: An African Diaspora Poetics of Loss” (2020).

“In this quote Brand talks of forgetting as being a prerequisite for living in peace: 'There are no ruins of slave houses on this island,' she says, 'perhaps that is all to the good. Forgetting is a crucial condition of living with any peace.' Yet, it’s apparent from that dour prison dress that haunts her that this kind of peace is not available to Brand. For even without the ruins of slave houses being visible, Brand is aware of their former presence. The memory of them has faded from the landscape, but they have not been forgotten.”