BLACK MERCER, A Dark Nature.
Adrian 'Qolour' deHeer-Amissah
See it On Campus: Level 2
“The beautiful black threads within the weave of the world”.
“BLACKNESS. ILLNESS. PERCEPTION. This African-Canadian lens, with a gothic flare, tells the story of my identity. A DARK NATURE. My story, as a single strand within the world’s weave”. – A.Q.D.
The ‘Guerrilla Runway’ Men’s show + performance, taking place on Hogan’s Alley (Gore street) and Robson street, Vancouver British Columbia, Canada. This collection encompasses themes of blackness, illness, and perception, by way of marrying my ‘African-Canadian’ lens with a gothic flare.
This publicly-displayed collection garnered an array of reactions from the public eye, landing itself in now two events, and stirring important conversation within the community. This is only the beginning of this creative movement towards awareness, and the promotion of expression to unveil the identities that make up Vancouver’s identity, through various mediums within design, art, and architecture.
Here is a closer looks at looks 1-5
BLACKNESS. ILLNESS. PERCEPTION. This African-Canadian lens, with a gothic flare, tells the story of my identity. A DARK NATURE. My story, as a single strand within the world’s weave.
BLACK + DARK are specific in the qualities they share. The former is specific to some, while the ladder bears a heavy presence in everyone’s story.
BLACK-COATED threads pour from us all. They are tears, they are wings, they are strings that hold us together as individuals, or as a community.
BLACK BUILDS CHARACTER. DARK MAKES CHARACTER. There are so many characters + cultures that exist through the faint echoes of Vancouver.
VISIBILITY MATTERS. There are so many cultures in the city and in every individual, and the echoes of their voices are ever-increasing in sound, and dialogue with each other.
CREATIVE EXPRESSION MATTERS. These echoes are all unique and integral to the weave of Vancouver. They give the city character.
STORY MATTERS. Pop-Culture, West Africa, North America, medieval Europe; these are all integral parts to this story, and the many dialogues taking place within.
UNITY MATTERS. The Adinkra symbol that is ‘BESE SAKA’ depicts unity, abundance, and affluence. This symbol finds itself trickled throughout the collection.
A DARK PROCESS.
Explorations with construction began with a simple t-shirt, patterned to be joint evenly at the back, representing the ‘bese saka’ woven in, and holding the garment together.
My t-shirts led to more complex construction that would begin to tell my story, and map the full story of the project.
With my confidence steadily building I would start filming my construction, feeling comfortable with a camera capturing my trials and tribulations.
The braid was a powerful point of construction. I felt power in what I was attempting to do, and once the weaving began it felt nothing but right.
This project revolves around the realm of Vancouver, and my experience being here, having a story, but missing an image of a culture amongst cultures that could relate. Black people are, alongside other cultures, but do they have a ‘home here; a space to boast about.
I went out to test routes and locations in vancouver for a spectacle to take place. This was for the people of Van, and I wanted it seen first hand. This message needed to cut through the hollow shell that acted as a shield for the cultures and stories that were all around.
The weather around this time was very unpredictable, and so the best I could do was find an easy-to-maneuver spot, and hope the weather was on my side.
Hogan’s Alley is a place now of stale echoes of the past. These echoes no longer play their sound, and I went to witness this first hand. Helene’s suggestion for the space opened up a whole new element to my vision; incorporating what was a loud and thriving predominantly black hub of the 20’s to 40’s, turned mute in 1972. Walking through the now ‘gore ave’ was uneasily meditative.
This project asked a lot from my ears as I moved through different physical spaces throughout the design process. If I have learned anything about my design process after all these years, it would be how much I need to listen as I design.
Making an anthem to capture the world of this project carried the worthy challenge of translating a visual experience to a sonic one. The two halves needed to be symbiotic with each other, joining forces to be fully immersive within this tank of thread and moss that I was designing.
So much imagery, so many metaphorical links, and a video helped to display it all. It finally felt like I had made an art piece. The work would speak for itself, as to speak on every detail would take from the impact and allure.
A DARK STORY.
“I don’t know when I started realizing I was black but I feel like it didn’t take too long. And then being Ghanaian. I had a mind of silk at the time, just flowing through the duality that was introduced to my life:
Light and dark, dark and black, black and African, sensitive and numb. Woah…”
“Personal style never played a role till high school when my brother and I no longer wore the uniforms that our parents curated for us, now pressured by the watchful eye of a Eurocentric space, other Africans, and Afro-Canadians.
It’s like a ‘Boyz N Da Hood’ type of thing like, be the Tre or the Ricky in a group of Doughboys but, there’s never guarantees on your outcome. Would I be proud of the black man I would present to the world? Would God be proud? What matters to a divine power anyway?”
“I began to feel this unknown pain in the gut about half way through high school. It was debilitating; nothing I consumed wanted to stay down. The diagnosis was Crohn’s disease. Living in the gut as a constant swell of pain just pulsating. Every move, every laugh, every conversation.
You start to hide within it. Hours become days, become months become years, you become sensitive to everything. A silky reality fading to darkness starts to stain the hands you wished to sculpt mountains with.”
“I reached to God but the darkness kept climbing those hands as if I was reaching in the wrong pond. I started to tear and see fragments of myself blending with the dark nature of my reality and all that progress I was making no longer mattered because I didn’t care. Numb to it all.
The black veil that hung over my head now held me like a cage. This was the new me.”
“I didn’t even realize the identity that I was building, and the way people saw me was very new. And a LOT more fashionable it has to be said like night and day. I stopped really thinking about passion and started to just… do. Expressing beauty from darkness.
I love a beautiful, dark film you know. Annihilation is a gorgeous film inside and out but you gotta take a step back to see it. Midsummer too I’ve never been so conflicted.. okay conflicted is crazy. The nature of that film is dark. But it’s nature. Does that make sense? Maybe I related to these films.
Moving through university as an industrial design student helped me realize a fixation with holy spaces, and the ambiance. I’ve gone to an Anglican church all my life so when I think of a holy space it’s grand, it’s gothic to varying degrees, it has an aura, and depth.”
A DARK ENDING, A BLACK BEGINNING.
Stills from the ‘Isa & Friends’ pop up event, where a concentrated spotlight on my collection, and it’s story, garnered even more reach. This showing cultivated a whole new space for conversations, future partners in this work, and further collaboration with the organizers.
Shots from ‘Sound Stars featuring Matt Ox’. The Braid from my collection was requested as a symbol for the community, attracting more post-conversation in a natural community environment. The culture, for the culture. This concert hosted various local musicians alongside Matt Ox, a special guest artist of high status from the US.
As the dark veil settles, and the black curtain marks a close, a new foundation is laid for the beginning of a beautiful practice. A bridge has been made clear between Design, art, and storytelling, and the messaging behind aesthetics will continue to expand and evolve as long as there are eyes to see, ears to listen, and souls to feel.
GOTHIC AESTHETICS + ARCHITECTURE, MEDIEVAL THROUGHLINES, ALONGSIDE THE DUALITY OF A GHANAIAN-CANADIAN UPBRINGING. A RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION, POP-CULTURE NODS (SUCH AS THE LIKES OF ‘BOYZ N DA HOOD’), CUTS + MATERIALS THAT TAP INTO GHANAIAN ATTIRE; ALL WHILE SUFFERING THE REALITIES + CONCLUSIONS THAT CAME WITH CROHN’S DISEASE.
BLACKNESS. ILLNESS. PERCEPTION.
WITNESS. PROCESS. ENJOY.
