Marked, Not Erased is a wearable garment and performance piece rooted in a recurring dream in which I am wearing a wedding dress and wandering through a quiet, suspended world, searching for something I cannot name. This feeling of being lost and in-between shaped the emotional foundation of the work. Developed in response to the artist I was assigned in Integrative Seminar 1, Yinka Shonibare, the project uses a white wedding jumpsuit paired with African kente-inspired fabric to explore surrealism, memory, and identity through a Western and Black American lens. During the performance, I invited my classmates to slowly paint white primer over the patterned fabric. This ritual-like act references Western systems of assimilation and respectability that have historically encouraged Black Americans to cover visible markers of culture in order to be accepted. Even as the fabric is painted over, traces of the pattern remain visible, reinforcing the idea that culture and identity cannot be erased, only marked. Through collective participation, the garment becomes a living site of memory, endurance, and presence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":19263,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-19262","student-work","type-student-work","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-integrative-studio-seminar-1","tag-memory"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n