Lethe
Ciena B.
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My piece is dedicated to all of the Black people who want to learn more about their ancestry and where their familial lines originated from, despite that information being forcefully separated from us throughout history. It was a struggle, portraying longing for the unknown, but I feel I was able to tie the piece together in the end. The figure in the center of the piece is a symbol for the spirits of those unknown ancestors, and is based off of the "ba," human-headed birds able to travel between the world of the living and the dead and represent parts of the soul in Egyptian mythology The eyeless portraits in the background symbolize the faceless, unknown ancestors that we wish to know so much about. In the left corner of the piece, a hand is being removed from a Black woman's eyes, allowing her to finally view the parts of her ancestry which have been hidden from view for so long.
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When I express my creativity, I allow myself to.
