Lavender Juncture

 When I first saw this post, I was excited to read Roy DeCarava’s “Graduation”. This piece has intrigued me from the beginning, from a combination of its overall aesthetic composition as well as the positionality of the subject in their surroundings.  Despite it dating 1949 and the Black Male exhibition from 1994-5, I seek to consider what it means for this work to be exhibited in 2024 in relation to DeCarava’s subjectivity.

 

 The young woman in her graduation gown is bathed in light, contrasting greatly with the rest of the image where trash, and the waste of deserted and abject industrialism prevails in the shadows, multiplicitous in its presentations; an empty single wagon wheel, a Chevrolet advert, toward which her eyes are sternly cast, graffiti of “princ”-  on the wall. Whilst each of these could present its own individual set of challenges for symbolic interpretation I would first like to discuss the subject’s stance with regard to the rest of the setting. She is positioned in the light, donning a white graduation dress. At first glance, one might assume this to be a wedding dress, an abject bride who has lost their veil, but upon further research, they realise the symbolism of the white graduation dress for women to allude not only to marriage, but purity and also new beginnings. Her facing toward the multitude of destitute objects in the shadows indicates a temporal relationship therefore to her position. How might she navigate the unclear multitude of undesirable options. Yet her stance, dress slightly hoisted, and poised and eyes gazing directly toward the Chevrolet advert speaks to a certain type of forthright determination through the uncertain future.

 

Both in 1949 and today, this image reflects the ways in which Black women subjects, having gone through all the systems of education and come out the other side, continue to face systems that are not set up for the to succeed. There is no guarantee of the nuclear family future, there is no guarantee of a knight in shining armour. And at the same time, when forced to assert their agency and take on roles in society wherein the woman is not seen as appropriate out of necessity, they are viewed as transgressive and demonized for it. For me this photo represents that point of juncture, the moment of decision wherein the structure of the educational institution no longer holds you within its strictures (for better or worse), and a Black feminine agency of determination through flexibility, through innovative ways through which to navigate the next steps is necessary and necessarily demonized. The space and refuse between her position bathed in light and the Chevrolet is poignant, yet her eyes are dead set on it.

 

This framing of Black female agency in a country where almost half of all Black mothers are single mothers, yet the societal expectation and individual desire to bear and raise children continues, is a point of juncture that continues from prior to DeCarava until today; its timelessness amplified by the monochromatic setting. Black masculinity does not exist in a vacuum. It’s photographic absence here speaks volumes about its relation to wider Black communities and the types of roles Black women then inhabit. Their transgressive femininities declared with a quiet confidence in a way that is not necessarily anti-Black male, but decidedly pro-Black future. 

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