The Masked Black Soul

{Long before foreign ships tore across the horizon, people told the story of their ancestors around a fire; their carved masks carried the memory of their ancestors. One day, colonizers imposed a new mask, invisible but heavy, on African peoples. It was no longer a mask of spirit, but a mask of humiliation, silence, and submission. They made us forget our gods, our languages, our names, making us believe that the goal was to make us new men. Africans had to hide their identity behind this foreign mask; thus, the white mask became the facade of a pain that was no longer visible. However, in the pain, the silence, coded songs were born: masked prayers, hidden cries in the rhythm of the drums. Thus, our ancestors left us as a last legacy: we did not disappear under the mask that was imposed on us, our souls continue to speak. But the mask remains current, because African children are taught to be ashamed of their skin and to doubt their name. Africa was forced to wear a face other than its own. However, in every glance, every canvas, every sculpture, every garment, the soul refused to be silent. The masked black soul is the memory of those who, behind the imposed masks, kept the beauty, faith, and truth of their origins. Ancestors, slaves, forgotten people who, behind the imposed masks, breathed and kept the beauty, faith, and truth of their origins and languages. The fragments of broken mirror represent the roots of our ancestors crushed by this mask imposed by the colonizers. The same mask that marked the beginning of the slave trade, through colonization, and up to today where we are in neo-colonization. The red spots on the black background of the work show the blood of our ancestors shed on the battlefields with the aim of obtaining peace.}