Artist Talk: Shantrelle Lewis

New Orleans Native and Bed-Stuy resident Shantrelle P. Lewis is the director of public programming and exhibitions at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI). She also is curator for a new exhibit, “Sex Crimes Against Black Girls,” which opened Saturday February 5th at the Skylight Gallery in Restoration Plaza.

Lewis has traveled around the world in her pursuit to gain greater understanding of the African aesthetic first-hand, including to Cuba, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Spain and London.

Her curatorial credits include exhibitions on a variety of topics, including Contemporary Haitian Art, a tribute to Betty Davis, the Haitian Revolution, The Feminine in African Sacred Traditions and New Orleans sacred traditions. Lewis is producing her first documentary The Wild Magnolia, as part of an oral history project of the Magnolia Projects in New Orleans, of which she is the Project Director.

Lewis sat down with Patch to provide insight on her motivation behind a very serious subject matter pervasive in the black community, and within the black Diaspora – childhood sexual abuse – also the subject of her latest project at Skylight Gallery.

What sparked your interest in the matter of black women and sex crimes?

I took a class when I was in grad school at Temple [University] in African-American studies. It was 2006, and I was charged with engaging in this work of a literary critic named Hortense Prose. She did this essay called, “The Permanent Obliquity of an In(pha)llibly Straight: In the Time of Daughters and the Fathers.”

The book explored literature that touched on incest within the African-American community. And she looked at the works of Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison that addressed this longstanding issue of sex crimes within our community, and I was just so taken aback by her treatment of the subject.

What was so different about the way she dealt with the subject?

She said, we as a people have been so reticent about these things because there’s this larger blanket of racism that we deal with. So how do we confront the men in our homes, when they’re already dealing with this larger issue of racism?

So it’s like they’re already at war against society. But then you become at war with them when you confront them about these issues. And so it hit me in a very personal way because of my own personal narrative as an incest survivor. I didn’t tell anyone in my family for a long time, I think, because of those reasons. I didn’t share this with my parents until after Katrina.

Was it a family member that violated you?

Yes, it was my cousin.

Why was Katrina such a turning point for you?

Everything that had been hidden and swept under the rug socio-economically, spiritually and politically within our homes and communities was brought to light. I think that Katrina forced us to face a lot of harsh realities about life in New Orleans that tended to be covered up.

I think, because New Orleans is known as a jovial city, it’s the “Big Easy;” it’s this big social town. It’s a drinking town, a partying town. So even in death, we celebrate. But there are so many issues underneath all of that: The poverty, the low education level, the deplorable conditions that a lot of people lived in. Prejudice within the black community...

There were so many issues that were washed out with Katrina. So after the storm, I felt compelled to share my own story with my own mother. It was a very intense moment. She kept asking me, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I was very careful about allowing you to stay by anyone’s house; I made sure that I told you that if anyone ever touched you to let me know.’

Why didn’t you tell her back then?

I think that even at a young age, I was fearful of the kind of drama it might cause within the family. But I also understood that it wasn’t my fault. I understood these people are sick. But I think that I internalized it, and then it came out in other ways later. I was a tomboy for my entire adolescence. I always wore baggy clothes. I mean, even as boy crazy as I was, I never wanted to bring that kind of sexual attention to myself. Something told me that I needed to protect myself. I never wanted to put myself in a situation again where someone who have control over me. But it affected my relationships, trust issues. So there was a larger framework of trauma.

I don’t know the statistics, but I thought that most women who went through that sort of trauma later dealt with self-esteem issues and promiscuity. What made you different?

It’s ironic you ask that, because initially, I was going to title the show, “Sex Crimes Against Black Girls: She Can Go One of Two Ways.”

And so I had this conversation last night how these situations either create hyper-sexuality or hypo-sexuality. So it plays out with the girl who is either very promiscuous or has decided not to deal with men at all. But my parents were so nurturing to me. So I knew healthy love. And I also knew what I needed to do to make sure it didn’t happen anymore.

You seem to have dealt with it well. So, what compelled you to return to the subject by pulling together an art exhibit?

At the time, I was transitioning back to New York from New Orleans when I sent out the call. I needed to find a home for [the exhibit]. So I submitted the proposal to Restoration and Skylight Gallery, and they’ve been supportive since the beginning. I think as an institution, they are brave and courageous to even tackle this issue. Because it something extremely subjective. But it touches so many of us. You have no idea who is on staff or who’s in the building with another one of these stories.

How did you decide on your approach for this exhibit?

In preparation for this exhibit, I’ve been reading Bell Hooks’s book, ‘Talking Back.’ And in one of the chapters, she talks about how challenging it is for her to share her own stories sometimes, like her personal stories, and she mentions Audre Lorde using this term called ‘bio-mythography.’ And so I think that that’s what this exhibition is for a lot of the artists.

What is bio-mythography?

It’s a term used to denote narrative that comes from memory but is also infused with like a blurr... So, as you are relaying your personal narrative, and you have to rely on your memory, there of course are certain things that come with memory that might not necessarily be factual or have totally existed in reality. But in your mind, they existed. And it is real. And so, for me, that’s what is giving me the space to talk about this and the space for the artists themselves.

What about this exhibit stand out to you as special, compared to the others you have curated?

If I were to do this exhibit and just highlight each piece individually, each piece could stand on its own, and I can’t say that about any other exhibit I’ve ever curated. These are all strong artists that are at very exciting points in their careers in terms of where they are exhibiting. A lot of them are exhibiting nationally, internationally. They’re getting major recognition.