Offerings, Paula Damasceno.

Offerings connects historical photographic and printing methods to ancestry, modernity and their residues in the contemporary Transamerican African Diaspora. I use the tintype to reclaim and re-appropriate 19th-century photographic medium to produce objects where the Western African liturgy is at the center. Violently displaced from their land by the Atlantic slave trade, Western African communities brought their liturgy to the Americas where the worship of the Orishas remains a common trait. People offer to the Orishas, the Orishas take care of people. This series uses 19th-century photographic methods to reinsert Western African cosmology within contemporary and historical narratives and at the same time disrupt them. Nature, circular shapes, and the presence of an elusive human subject substantiate Ofefrings aesthetic claims of historical beauty and imperfection. The subtle blemishes on the surface made by the purposeful manipulation of the photographic process depict a complex history of struggle. As a result, Western African cosmology occupies a historical archival gap. Hands and feet denote an act of resistance through spiritual resilience. Nature embraces the fragility of humanity and reconnects us to divine strength through the offerings of foods, flowers, and intention. Offerings from humans to deities, from Africa to the world.