Sierra Leone/Jamaica | A Mythology of Memory — Photo Essay by Berette Macaulay
Aunt Gertrud Kretzchmar (Tante Trude). Beskyden, Czech Republic, 2009. © Berette Macaulay.
BY BERETTE MACAULAY | THE IMMIGRANT ISSUE | SPRING, 2014
Though I will be a stranger in my land of origin, the importance of this journey is to bridge the gaps in my identity and my parents’ painful sabotage of identity. I want to know them in the historical and current political context of Sierra Leone; I want to know our story stripped of myth.
My understanding of the world is richly influenced by my mixed cultural background — I was born in Sierra Leone to my Sierra Leoneon father and multi-racial mother of Czech-German, Dominican-French-Creole, and Sierra Leoneon heritage. I was raised in Jamaica and the United Kingdom, and I’m now based in the United States. But my creative motivation stems from constant internal and external psychosocial negotiations of identity. It is no exaggeration to state that almost daily when I open my mouth to speak, my non-descript accent creates immediate demands for explanation—whether locally or on my travels.
In my work, I seek to express, however unfamiliar or uncomfortable, the near untenable navigations of class, race, culture, spirituality, language, and secular stratum. I am drawn to investigating Memory and exposing the introspective emotional language of this through conceptual portraiture.
The portraits featured here in A Mythology of Memory* are from a genealogical study rooted in my own multicultural/immigrant experience. My interest in investigating family roots developed when my father died in 2006. I began to confront the Myth of the Man, the stories around how my family ended up in Jamaica, how my parents fled Sierra Leone for their lives, our hero worship of my father, and thus the Myth of Myself.
My parents, Berthan Macaulay Q.C. and Margarette May Macaulay, LLB at the Commonwealth Law Conference, Lagos, Nigeria, 1980.
My father, Berthan Macaulay Q.C. was appointed the first indigenous Attorney-General of Sierra Leone in 1963, shortly after the country’s independence from Britain in 1961. During this time my mother, Margarette May, was a law student and living in London. My parents had a short albeit long distance courtship of love between Britain and Sierra Leone during 1966. They wed in London in February, 1967 and within 24 hours my mother accompanied my father to Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Within a short time after their arrival, a series of political events and upheavals occurred. There was an ongoing election, during which an attempt was made to appoint a Prime Minister before the conclusion of the election. My father’s legal opinion was sought by the Governor General as to the constitutionality of such an appointment. His opinion was that it would be unconstitutional. There followed a declaration of martial law, followed by coups and counter coups.
Shortly after the assumption of power by the army government, my father resigned as Attorney General and returned to private practice. In 1968 my father was charged, along with other high officials of the previously elected government, with treason. The case against my father was that he had given a dishonest legal opinion to the Governor General. He was imprisoned for three years and nine months in the Pademba Road Prison in Freetown. He was 39 years old. During his imprisonment, Sierra Leone had become a one party state under the All People’s Congress (APC). After his release (due to pressures from Britain and other commonwealth countries, including Jamaica), my parents endured several death threats and attempts on my father’s life. In February 1974, shortly after I was born, my parents left Sierra Leone for the far and culturally foreign island of Jamaica. Their midlife start in the Caribbean is wholly the staff of how I experience life—in flight, uncommitted, exiled, and in search.
Aunt Marie Lomas. Beskeyden, Czech Republic, 2009. © Berette Macaulay
.
Aunt Adelaide Dworzak-Whest. Ebenstein, Austria, 2009. © Berette Macaulay
.
While slowly uncovering stories of my father through recorded interviews, the opportunity to travel on a maternal family reunion came up. The development of A Mythology of Memory began in 2009 on a West African/Czech German family reunion in Beskyden, Czech Republic and Ebenstein on the Austrian/German border. It is comprised of 26 portraits of members of my maternal family and acquired materials showing an intercultural family history dating back to the 1700s. Traveling together from our homes in four continents/regions (West Africa, Europe, United States, and the Caribbean), we attracted the interest of the Sudetan Scholar Society, and a documentary filmmaker who accompanied us. The journey was later featured on Czech Republic TV. This portrait work, which I originally titled Neue Rootz, continued in September 2013 into Nürnberg, Germany and Klimkovice, Czech Republic with my mother who was unable to attend the original reunion journey in 2009. This journey gave me a better template to develop the story of my parents’ dramatic departure from Sierra Leone.
Few in my immediate family live in our birth countries or where we were raised, including myself. This results in easy social adaptations; yet, we also experience constant cultural disparities. We are nomadic in where we reside, our chosen professions, and in how we love. We constantly negotiate cultural contradictions, navigate dissonant social circumstances, and often have to explain unlikely duo-realities, like being part African and part German. This often becomes a strange cultural marriage to explain and defend.
Cousin Hanna Pietzcker. Ebenstein, Austria, 2009. © Berette Macaulay
.
Sister Bernadine Simpson. Beskyden, Czech Republic, 2009. © Berette Macaulay
.
Cousin Eva Pietzcker. Ebenstein, Austria, 2009. © Berette Macaulay
In the future, I will travel to Sierra Leone to document more of my family’s story. I understand the inevitability of retracing our personal middle passages by traveling back to the once troubled nation, Sierra Leone, that is my birth land, and to do so in its current moment of redevelopment since the Blood Diamond civil war of the 1990s.
Though I will be a stranger in my land of origin, the importance of this journey is to bridge the gaps in my identity and my parents’ painful sabotage of identity. I want to know them in the historical and current political context of Sierra Leone; I want to know our story stripped of myth. I want to uproot forgotten details of their journey that hold familiar contemporary markers for immigrants now.
I will use the camera to subjectively examine personal heritage for my own understanding of ‘self.’ My work, I hope, will function as a conceptual language for how all immigrant families seek and work to assuage dissonant histories and how they strive to create conscious agency in the evolution of culture for younger generations.
*Selections from the Mythology of Memory series were chosen for CCNY National Jury in 2012 and shown at the National Gallery of Jamaica 2010 Biennial.
♦
Berette Macaulay is an award-winning artist born in Sierra Leone of West African/French- Dominican/German-Czech descent. She was raised in Jamaica and the UK, and is now based in the US. Her creative background is in the performing arts as an actor, dancer, theater technician, and writer. She has created, published, and exhibited works in Costa Rica, Germany, Hong Kong, Jamaica, UK, and around the US. She works primarily in photo-based mixed media and installation using digital, alternative, and analog work processes. She works collaboratively on interdisciplinary projects with performers, choreographers, filmmakers, and writers. She also works under the name SeBiArt. Twitter: @SeBiArt
OF NOTE Magazine is free to readers, free of advertising, and free of subscriptions—all made possible by generous supporters like you. Your tax tax-deductible gift will help us continue to feature innovative and emerging global artists using the arts as tools for social change. OF NOTE Magazine is a fiscally sponsored organization of the New York Foundation for the Arts, a 501 (c) (3), tax-exempt organization. All donations are 100% tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.
Someone essentially lend a hand to make significantly posts I’d state. That is the first time I frequented your website page and to this point? I surprised with the research you made to make this particular submit incredible. Magnificent process!
Go travelling source naturals life force multiple vitamins In certain places, when the mist silhouettes trees in the distance, and the breeze smells like wildflowers, it can feel like you’re hiking through a dream.
Great – I should certainly pronounce, impressed with your site. I had no trouble navigating through all the tabs and related info ended up being truly simple to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it in the least. Reasonably unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or something, website theme . a tones way for your client to communicate. Nice task.
Until August xanax generic 1 mg Meanwhile, the research also revealed that children born with a low birth weight are 70% more likely to have sight problems compared to their normal weight peers
The manager erectile dysfunction pharmacy ldl Plaid Cymru's Treasury spokesman, Jonathan Edwards MP, says: “Whatever the result in Scotland, any Westminster government that ignores the immediate need for greater powers all round for the nations of these islands is only burying its head in the sand.”
It’s serious buy periactin uk hydrochloride Officials of India's Border Security Force said Pakistani soldiers fired guns and mortar shells at 10 of its border posts and some villages in the Arnia area in Jammu district over the weekend, leading to the deaths of civilians there
always a massive fan of linking to bloggers that I like but dont get a lot of link like from
International directory enquiries gc max diet testimoni The Baltimore Sun reported that the investigation stems from an incident with a dog
Lost credit card kurlon spinekare A few days later, Germany asked the CIA station chief in Berlin to leave the country, an unprecedented demand from a U.S
Sorry, you must have the wrong number prednisone treatment for allergies The debate with Gordon is whether the Dodgers sold high (after he seemed to wear down in the second half of last season, stealing only eight bases after Aug
I really like your writing style, good information, thanks for putting up : D.
Sorry, I ran out of credit review medicinescomplete.com “Be honest, I saw (Ferguson) shoot the ball and I saw the red lights go off,” Hunter said explaining the sequence of events that led to his injury
I was recommended this web site by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my problem. You’re incredible! Thanks!
I sing in a choir aminophylline It’s her first relationship, and she’s looking for some emotional intimacy in a partner
Could I have , please? viagra kopen in nederland zonder recept They’ve won games thanks to a wild pitch and now a wild throw, and four of their five wins in the LDS and LCS have been one-run affairs, including that 18-inning marathon with the Nationals.
I enjoy travelling caverta 25 mg buy online ** Verso Paper Corp will have to divest paper millsin Maine and Wisconsin in order to complete its acquisition ofNewPage Holdings, the U.S
I’d like to change some money review healthexpress.fr Dobyns, a decorated agent, best-selling author and former star football player at the University of Arizona, joined ATF out of college
I’ll text you later buy cbd oil houston tx frisco “However, they will not provide the explanation as to why such variation may exist
I have not checked in here for some time as I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are great quality so I guess I will add you back to my everyday bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂
Thanks funny site anorexia nervosa ”Our study suggests that even modest habitual alcohol consumption of more than five units per week had adverse effects on semen quality although most pronounced associations were seen in men who consumed more than 25 units per week,” the authors wrote.
Some really superb posts on this website, thanks for contribution. “I finally know what distinguishes man from other beasts financial worries. – Journals” by Jules Renard.
very best job betasone Sarah Milne, Bristol Hippodrome's spokeswoman, said: “Archibald joined the theatre staff as a callboy and later on he joined a company who were appearing here, Bob Pender's troupe of acrobats.
perfect design thanks periactin for dogs where can i buy cheap Swiss Re Chief Financial Officer David Cole said it was tooearly to comment on a special dividend on its 2014 results andthe issue would be addressed in February, when the reinsurerreports full-year earnings.
I like watching TV brintellix dosing “We’re going to keep pushing to get those restrictions lifted as part of getting an embassy,” responded Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs
This website was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something which helped
me. Thanks!
A few months gianvi retail price The resolution of the Hong Kong protests will tell us what kind of nation China will become over the next few decades
Could I borrow your phone, please? tadacip 20 mg notice We figured if we can't find good talkers in those cities we're doing it wrong
Looking for work nutox oxyfusion price malaysia It brought down the computer network at Sony Pictures Entertainment, prompted the leak of embarrassing emails, and led to a film cancellation that many in Hollywood and Washington said was tantamount to caving in to the hackers.
Could you send me an application form? daily multifocal contact lenses reviews Now, though, entering the month of November in his second season, Talbot has started just one game, allowing four goals on 23 shots to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct
I’ve just graduated pharm.com.cn “Otherwise, temporarily reducing food craving by brisk walking will be ineffective
We are a group of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community. Your site provided us with valuable information to work on. You have done a formidable job and our whole community will be thankful to you.
I quite like cooking turbovas asp 10 mg Their study included 45 adults aged between 21 and 70 who were overweight or obese.
Where’s the postbox? ponatinib package insert pdf The 20-year-old Williams has been charged with two counts of first degree assault, firing a weapon from a motor vehicle, and three counts of armed criminal action, St
A person necessarily lend a hand to make seriously articles I might state. This is the first time I frequented your web page and so far? I surprised with the research you made to make this actual submit amazing. Fantastic activity!
Looking for work erexor results Each year, the club goes through 2,500 pairs of stockings, 500 liters of body makeup, and 300 red lipsticks, according to the management