Aesthetics

What is aesthetics? For me aesthetics are sensory and sensori-emotional values that we each hold. It can also relate specifically to reflecting on the arts, the style of something and then how we percieve it.

“We perceive the thing minus that which does not interest us” ( Deleuze 1986)

This week our Film class was shown Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash (1991). The film is set in the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina at the turn of the 20th Century, and focuses on three generations of Gullah women planning to migrate from their home, to mainland America. The film employs an unusual narrative device, as the story is told by three main narrators. Nana Peazant, the matriarche of the family, a second generation Peazant and an unborn child; who is a force that will address the aesthtics of change in the Gullah family within the film. She is the force that will drive the past into the future.

A recurring theme in Daughters of the Dust is the relationship between tradition and modernity. Because Gullahs were isolated in the Sea Islands from the rest of America, they managed to create and maintain an African American culture. Viola Peazant is uplifted at the idea of travelling to mainland America, and has lost touch with the African traditions that Nana Peazant still practices. Some of the Gullah women even wish to turn their back on it completely.

“I’m tired of Nana’s old stories. Watching her make those root potions … and that Hoo doo she talks about. Washing up in the river with her clothes on, just like those old ‘Salt Water’ folks used to do. My children ain’t gonna be like those old Africans fresh off the boat.”

Here, Haagar is criticising Nana for not looking towards the future. However, the film also looks on the philosophy that old African traditions can be mixed with newer American ones, shown when Nana uses the Bible (a symbol of Western Christian ideoligies) to make a charm for her family.

Some key points about the aesthetics of my own community-

• Urbanization- “Manchester was the poster city of the Blair/Brown Labour governments, put forward as a glimmering example of ‘urban regeneration’… But the plush, luxurious apartment blocks and trendy wine bars were not built for the ordinary Mancunian. A result of slum clearance and the pre-2008 speculative property boom, their sky high prices attracted only the super-privileged; many remain empty.”
• Multicultural- Manchester is a city that has a culturally diverse population. That is something that I really enjoy about the community which I live in.