Angela G. Ray, Ph.D., Associate Professor – School of Communication Northwestern University

Situated on a street corner and presented in the form of a residential library box, “What You See/What We See” showcases the cultural pain caused across centuries by dehumanizing, white supremacist images of the people of the African diaspora, especially Black Americans. At the same time, it also presents images of joy and achievement in Black lives and Black families. With the negative images marked “Danger” and encircling the outside of the box, and the positive images inside, sheltered behind a curtain that is printed with colorful, strong African patterns, the installation interrogates cultural representation and its effects by highlighting binaries: outside and inside, violence and safety, ignorance and truth, the profane and the sacred. Approaching the box, one is confronted with a mirror image of oneself: What do you see? How does our culture make that image meaningful to others? What is the true picture? What do differences in bodies—what Du Bois called the differences of “color, hair and bone”—signify to us, and to others? Yeefah’s art demands that we ask those questions, and whatever the mirror may show about our own body, she invites us to open the box, draw aside the curtain, and see the beauty, love, pride, and power of Black America.