Dead Zone (4)
2019 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
33.66 x 31.75 x 31.75 cm
Aria Dean
Although typically sold today as a novelty item for flower arrangements and interior decorating flourishes, cotton can also be seen as a proxy, through synecdoche, for US slavery. Dead Zone (4) by Aria Dean presents a preserved blossom of that trade’s primary cash crop, cotton, crystalized in a state of non-decay whilst encased under protective glass. Hidden in the base of the work is a signal jammer which prevents mobile phones from broadcasting when nearby. Although temporary, this scrambling slows the ability of audience to market themselves through proximity to Aria Dean’s item of cultural capital—considering the work’s subject, this also begs the question: who gets to represent who, what, and how when it comes to the spectacle of marketing images of pain, symbolized here through cotton, a commodity historically extracted from Black slave labor.
Through art, text, and exhibition making, Aria Dean analyzes the structure and circulation of images and subjectivities in relation to material, cultural histories, and technology. In particular, Dean has established herself as one of the leading young theorists in the discussion around Black cultural production and its appropriation in material culture through the paradigmatic essays “Poor Meme, Rich Meme” and “Notes on Blacceleration.”
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