The Memory of Art
The Memory of Art
By Andrea Nwabuike
I was sitting on my bed, huddled shoulder to shoulder with a friend in solemn silence. Her laptop cast a dim glow over our faces – faces wearing expressions of shock and grief. It was as though the room had frozen, nothing moving or making sound beyond the screen before us. We were held captive by Twelve Years a Slave, the 2013 film adaptation of Solomon Northup’s memoir. Solomon was a free-born violinist who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. As he was smuggled from Washington D.C. to Louisiana, he was stripped of his name, occupation, family and ultimately his humanity.
The movie had received high praise for its raw portrayal of slavery in the United States. My friend and I heeded the warnings of previous movie-goers, waiting for the “right” moment to view the film. The violence and depravity it displayed demanded space to be processed. We chose a day when we felt ready for the task. Within the first few moments of the film, I realized that readiness is little more than a mirage in the desert of trauma. My limited knowledge of history could not prepare us to grapple with the story before us.
I was no stranger to the details of the transatlantic slave trade. But, as a child of African immigrants, I was offered the privilege of a somewhat distant connection to the history of slavery. My ancestors had stayed, remaining connected to their land, traditions, language and people. Adding further distance to my grasp of slavery was my upbringing in Canada. My history books had cast Canada as the great hero in the stories of slavery. It was as if the past lives of slaves and their ancestors were erased once they entered the north; paradise outshining the horrors of the hellish past.
Despite these buffers, I was not spared from the repercussions of slavery. Men and women with skin, hair, noses and eyes like mine were believed to be less than human. They were treated as cattle acquired for convenience and monetary gain. Time and geography offered no protection from the weight and meaning of this oppression. The physical chains of bondage have long since rusted, but the psychological chains continue to shine like gold.
It wasn’t until watching Twelve Years A Slave that I was led to remember the history of bigotry and racism in such a visceral way. As I sat before the screen with my friend, we were not simply watching a movie or listening to a story. We were participating in a collective act of remembering, one that audiences across the world had undertaken. More than reading statistics or hearing the facts of a brutal history, we were seeing the lived realities of men and women from another time. The distance between myself and the history of slavery was bridged in the creative rendering of Solomon’s story. As I participated in this act of remembrance I was confronted by the ghosts of oppression and racism that haunted my own life. This confrontation contextualized my experience in a racialized body within a greater narrative. The feelings of isolation and otherness that I had sensed throughout my life were not a figment of my imagination. It was, and is, real. The film validated my unique experience as a black woman, connecting me to others whose names and faces I would never know.
In her acceptance speech for the PEN/Borders Literary Service Award, Toni Morrison argued that, “Certain kinds of trauma visited on peoples are so deep, so cruel, that unlike money, unlike vengeance, even unlike justice, or rights or the goodwill of others, only writers can translate such trauma and turn sorrow into meaning, sharpening the moral imagination.” I agree with Ms. Morrison but I would contend that the translation of trauma and sorrow into meaning is not solely the gift of the writer, but of all artists. Art has the capacity to bring significance to painful stories, unlike any other human practice, because art enables us to remember beyond cognition. Regardless of the medium, the artist engages the mind, body and heart of the audience in remembering both brilliant and tragic histories. By this function, art is necessary for human flourishing.
The ruling advice of our culture is to shake off the past in favour of embracing the present moment. We cannot change what has happened, so there is little power in ruminating over what lies behind. This caution against an obsession with the past is wise, but if we forsake the past, we also forsake ourselves. History is a mirror to the human heart. In it, the beauty and wickedness of humanity appears. Its reflection exposes our deepest fears, secret desires and biggest hypocrisies. We are no more vulnerable than when we are confronted with this reflection. In the shadows of our vulnerability is the hope for a better, more meaningful tomorrow. When we apply the knowledge of the past to our present lives, we lay the ground for a glorious future, with wisdom and understanding as our tools. But if remembrance is solely for the vanity of self-discovery, it holds no more significance than gazing in a bathroom mirror.
Jonas Stefan Ntibigarura
In Deuteronomy 5:15 God said to Israel, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” The command to Israel begins in the remembrance of their bondage in Egypt. Four hundred years of hard labour and suffering under the rule of a brutal master… to this, God says remember. But the intention behind the command was for Israel to see the hand of God throughout their story. On the Sabbath day — a day given to Israel for the purpose of communal remembrance — Israel was drawn to worship God for His goodness, grace and mercy. They would renew their love for him in remembering God’s love demonstrated to them.
Remembrance is weighty because it is a holy discipline, commanded by God for the ultimate purpose of His glory and the precious benefit of our good. In our remembrance we are drawn to marvel at the God of the universe, encountering His unchanging power and faithfulness throughout time. Even the darkest halls of history cannot overcome the light of God’s presence. In fact, the surrounding darkness only brings more brilliance to His light. Perhaps this is the reason God has commanded us to remember Him specifically in the context of great pain. He does not simply call for celebration of His goodness but commands us to mourn over the realities of our sorrow. In that bittersweet spot of celebration and mourning, we are humbled into a sacred intimacy with the Father.
If only we weren’t so forgetful. It was not long after God delivered Israel from Egypt that they began to forget. They forgot the horrors of slavery and the precious moments of their first venture into freedom. They forgot the oppression of Egypt and felt entitled to demand the desires of their heart. They forgot the God that delivered them. The farther they were from the suffering of the past, the colder their hearts grew towards God. And as their forgetfulness grew, so too did the fractures in their covenant relationship with God. This habit of forgetfulness was not reserved for the Israelites. When life grows comfortable and the memory of past trials gets fuzzy, we also commit the sin of forgetfulness and forsake the God of our salvation.
But God, in His infinite wisdom, prepared a response to our forgetfulness before our minds were even formed. His response was art. The creative God designed us with the capacity to create so that we could make, see, touch and taste reminders of Him. From beautiful songs telling of sacred traditions to moving poetry relaying the depths of human suffering, God has gifted men and women with the ability to point His people back to Him. The creation and consumption of art allows our remembrance to become more than a mental exercise. It is an action that leads into worship, enabling us to fulfill the very purpose of our creation. So in every church on every Sabbath, we choose to remember again. We engage in the drama of the Lord’s table to remember that we have been delivered from the bondage of sin by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We lift our voices to remember the God who has carried us through seasons of suffering and rejoicing. We engage with old truths and participate in timeless traditions because we know that all our faith hinges on our ability to remember.
Andrea Nwabuike
Writer & Spoken Word Artist
Photography by Jonas Stefan Ntibigarura