TRANSVERSALS / BLACK METAMORPHOSIS
Black Metamorphosis started as a musical composition inspired by Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World, an unpublished manuscript by the Jamaican scholar, philosopher and writer Sylvia Wynter. In her work, Wynter proposes a radical reinvention of what it means to be human, beyond the constraints of our contemporary time, with all its political, economic and social inequalities, as well as beyond Western constructions of race and subjectivity.
Heeding Wynter’s call, the Sierra Leonean artist Lamin Fofana’s work explores how an immersive sonic experience – beautiful, discomforting and melancholy, among other qualities – can provide relief and comfort during the complex process of coming to terms with one another. Commissioned to transform his musical composition into an installation for Vapor Buxeda Vell’s coal room, Fofana’s Black Metamorphosis is also eminently personal, a response to his lived experience as a Black African migrant in Europe and the United States, an experience of displacement and reinvention.
Transversals / Black Metamorphosis, 2024 © Lamin Fofana. Photo © Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana / Cecília Cova