Admittedly, I was late for Sondra Perry’s multi-media, interactive, conceptual performance piece at the Bottle Rocket gallery in Fayettville Saturday night. The visual of a black woman stirring up a big batch of pink, gooey, bubblegum in a large metal can and feeding it to herself and the audience, was to say the least, intriguing. I politely declined the offering, probably due to my generational concern of sharing bodily fluids and needles.
Somewhere in the interactive mix was dialogue pertaining to the movie “The Help” and whether it was an accurate portrayal of African American’s in the pre-civil rights era in the south. The visuals were very strong – the live digital feed and audience response – not so much.
Trying to find out a bit more info on the artist, I Googled Sondra Perry/ bubblegum and ironically came up with hundreds of photos of pop star Katy Perry.
Big kudos to Bottle Rocket for bringing in thought provoking work to our little corner of the world.
We were just the opposite, arriving early…early on there was a vigorous discussion about images of African-American women as portrayed by Hollywood in thr role of maids. The audience had participated in making of the bubblegum soup and while we were there Ms. Perry allowed the entire discussion to emerge organically from the viewers. A fascinating evening.
I missed the live feed story of the African American girl who felt embarrassed eating watermelon in public because of all the negative black stereotypes it conjured for her. I tried to lead the conversation towards gay stereotypes and homophobia, but nobody bit. It was an interesting evening however.