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Tia Blassingame

Settled: African American Sediment or Constant Middle Passage

Maker

Tia Blassingame (American, b. 1971), (RISD MFA 2015, Printmaking)

Title

Settled: African American Sediment or Constant Middle Passage

Year

2015

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Dimensions

24.8 x 38.7 cm (9 3/4 x 15 1/4 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed and numbered, in graphite, on colophon page

Identification

Edition

1/6

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Artist Development Fund Print Purchase Award

Object Number

2015.84

Type

Articles

An Ambitious but Essential Multi-Purpose Checklist for Discerning Black Artists

Exhibition History

Past Made Present
Dutch Shadows in the Black Atlantic
Sep 03, 2022 – Aug 06, 2023

Label copy

Settled contemplates the relationship between captive Africans during the Middle Passage and the contemporary African American experience of racism in the United States. Blassingame’s book honors and mourns the enslaved people who perished in rebellion on the Sally, a ship owned by the Brown family of Providence, as well as modern icons of the Black Lives Matter movement, such as Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Relisha Rudd. On the key theme of dehumanization, Blassingame offers, “The disruptive and mournful effects that death, kidnapping, abuse, or assault have on a person and a community transcend the borders of distance and time.”

Un/Settled
Dec 22, 2017 – Jul 08, 2018

Label copy

Settled explores the mistreatment and devaluation of persons of African descent at the height of the Atlantic slave trade and today. This artist’s book is located within the actual and metaphorical waters of Middle Passage, where slaves that perished on the Sally, one of the Brown family’s slaving ships, and contemporary figures such as Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley mingle. The text vacillates between expressing the splendor of being of African descent and the horrors of historical and contemporary American racism.

To see the entire book, visit risdmuseum.org/blassingame.

Image use

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In copyright This object is in copyright

Tombstone

Tia Blassingame (American, b. 1971)
Settled: African American Sediment or Constant Middle Passage, 2015
Artist's book of original poetry letterpress printed on Nepalese lokta paper
24.8 x 38.7 cm (9 3/4 x 15 1/4 inches)
Artist Development Fund Print Purchase Award 2015.84

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