Mother Nature in Distress: Contemporary Collages of the Black Female Body as Reflections upon Ecology

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the use of collage to portray the Black female body as intertwined with nature, to comment on the relationship between humanity, the environment, and the afterlife of colonialism. The current degradation of the environment calls for new approaches to connect ecology to political circumstances, such as the entanglement of colonialism in how society treats the environment. The fragmentation and restructuring that are inherent to collage form a strategy to visualise such entanglements, as well as the need for transformation. In three case studies, this thesis examines the work of Wangechi Mutu, Otobong Nkanga, and Kenyatta AC Hinkle. These case studies discuss the shared history of colonial exploitation between Black women’s bodies and the extraction of resources from nature. Besides, collage forms a critique on the harmful stereotypes of Black women. Existing literature on the three artists mentions Mikhail Bakhtin’s figure of the grotesque and Donna Haraway’s figure of the cyborg, of which elements are recognizable in the artists’ collaged oeuvres. A comparison between these figures, collage, and their relevance to the topics of ecology and colonialism forms a central feature of this thesis. This thesis aims to answer how and why Mutu, Hinkle, and Nkanga use collage to intertwine the Black female body with colonialism and environmental issues, as well as with the figures of the grotesque and the cyborg. Within this question this thesis addresses themes of motherhood, extractivism, capitalism, consumerism, ecofeminism, Black grief, Jane Bennett’s vital materialism, TJ Demos’ political ecology, Donna Haraway’s string figures, the influence of colonialism in the formation of Western science, and the reclamation of the Black female body. The findings of this study conclude that within Mutu’s, Nkanga’s, and Hinkle’s art, the act of collaging is crucial to portray how a shared history of exploitation connects Black women’s bodies and nature. Collage forms a strategy to reclaim their agency through transforming media that represents their marginalisation, regeneration, and resilience.