Art of Survival: Family Services
A Visual Journal Project by Collette McGruder
A Three Part Printed Visual Journal / Winter 2020
GIRL
When, I was a girl, I asked my mother the origin of my name.
“Because your Dad’s name is Charles we wanted a “C” name and so, we thought, Charlotte.” replied my very reserved and devoutly religious southern. Then she added “But I knew a Charlotte and she often came to work smelling like sex.”
Most of the lessons of youth carry a mixture of sage advice and projection into experiences beyond one’s years.
3:50 ‘Girl’ Repurposing Original Footage from ‘A Portrait of Sisterhood.’ featuring reading and poem by Jamaica Kincaid and music by Alice Coltrane.
Scandal at The Zoo
An homage to one of the earliest, complex stories of assimilation in America. Ota Benga an African whom found himself at the cross roads of identity - wherein assimilation and adaptation both came at came a cost.
6:48 Found Imagery, Editing
Based on text edited from the New York Times “Scandal At the Zoo” and music by Fever Ray.
On Becoming
If this uterus,
If these hormones,
If those fibroids . .
could talk they’d likely ask to speak to the manager.
”Exactly whom is supervising this life? Is it the inner masculine or the inner feminine?”
1:54, Inspired chakra color coding, Shadow / Light Animation
featuring Menopause Man by Ariel Pink