Yanai Koffi
Your Turn
Prompt: Light and Sound Piece: create a piece that deals with the body, in a space that you once occupied and will now reclaim through sculpture.
As a mixed girl being born into a melting pot of ethnicities, core memories of my cultures often consisted of celebration. I recall my grandparents, on my Belizean side, hosting gatherings every Sunday. The stove would be cluttered with mountain high pots filled with food, and music from speakers made the walls shake. During Garifuna Independence Day my grandma makes hudutu and mashed boiled plantain, a traditional dish. My inspiration from this peace stemmed from the moments I would use a hana to mash plantain with my grandparents. Using only the heat from my hands I molded the brown and yellow sculpting wax. To smooth the surface I quickly dipped the pot into boiling water. For the sound aspect of the piece, I coded a speaker that is activated by a button, through the handle of the hana uduwa (the mashing stick). The audio was extracted from a video of my grandma’s 60th birthday celebration. Your Turn, honors the act of sharing culture, traditions, and rituals throughout generations.