Nakeya Brown
In Mass Production Comes Home, Nakeya treats the home as a site of erasure by having objects stand in for human presence. Select objects embody traces of personal memory or signify a collective history within black female subjectivity. The total series is comprised of nine objects photographed independently: a can of ackee, a vanity box, a steel pot, a picture album, a pot of artificial flowers, an alarm clock, a stack of folded rag rugs, Blue Magic hair grease, and a depression glass bowl. She staged each object centrally on a wicker stool before a floral background. Adorning objects for the purpose of a photograph displaces them outside of their commonly perceived use. It was Nakeyas’ intent to reconsider the meaning and histories of everyday objects, which have personal, historical, and cultural ties to her identity as an image-maker. Through this strategy, household objects operated metaphorically symbolizing memories of her Caribbean grandmother and the biased systems of labor black women in America were subjected to endure historically and today.
