REMA HORT MANN FOUNDATION

Diamond Stingily

I want to reconstruct the idea of art for people who grew up similar to my social and economic background. I don’t believe art should be intimidating or only for the privileged. As a writer and an artist I want to show how an object can tell a story and share an experience. It makes the experience universal and hopefully through this form of vulnerability creates necessary conversations. I want to explore racism, colorism, femininity, surveillance, paranoia and phobias within my community and
question ideas of structure.
At the moment my subject matter is constant surveillance. In dominant Black neighborhoods in stores, restaurants and on the streets there are cameras. Black people are reminded with signs that read “Smile.You’re on camera” to smile. On streets in dominant Black neighborhoods, crime is migrated due to the surveillance cameras and bright lights used at night. The city doesn’t take into account the
residents who live in the buildings on the block and how it takes a toll on the mental health of the people living in these high surveillance neighborhoods. Through technology these are practices of anti-blackness.
I want to explore freedom. No one knows the true definition of it. I think freedom is escaping past restriction but no one is truly free because in some way the human experience finds a way to restrict itself again. My work grows from isolation then explores the awareness of people of what isolation means to them. In my most
recent work these relations become clearer and more intimate.