In Equality (Triptych)
Lisa Jarrett
Portland, Oregon
In Equality (Triptych), 2007
- Anarchy in America
- Our Loud Unequal Society
- A Vast Shining Ocean
Collaged book pages, graphite, ink, charcoal, and gouache on panel
Reading Ben Klassen’s publications proved to be painfully illuminating. Creating these pieces has allowed me to reflect deeply on the hollow nature of hate in contemporary society. My personal experiences as a black woman in America do not afford me the luxury of pretending that overt racism, hate, injustice, and violence are dead. To the contrary, the color of my skin continues to impact my day-to-day existence.
The impetus for this installation is the cross-out poem, created by physically crossing out unwanted words and circling desired words from an existing text and thereby developing an original poem. The intrinsic transformative nature of this style of poetry becomes a potent tool when applied to Klassen’s white supremacist writings.
While reading these works, haunting images of slavery were brought to mind. Images of women and men sentenced to death by hanging from trees were vivid. It seems fitting that the very ideas that are presented in Klassen’s books should meet the same abrupt end. Indeed, the words themselves should be hung.
Bio
Lisa Jarrett was born in 1977 in Morristown, New Jersey. She grew up as a Black American who moved with her family to various cities, often with conflicting political climates, in Texas, Minnesota, and New York. The influences of her upbringing in a post-Civil Rights and increasingly so-called “post-racial” America are apparent in her work, which confronts ideas of racial difference and perceptions of racial equity. Jarrett’s work is typically centered upon deconstructing and reassembling her personal experiences as a Black woman in America into projects that ask viewers to consider their own roles in present-day race relations. She lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches at Portland State University.