Equalizer

This site-specific mural inaugurates the new Project Space at The Studio
Museum in Harlem. Equalizer, by artist Odili Donald Odita (b. 1966), tells of
two moments of migration from the African continent to the Americas. The
first is the transatlantic slave trade, of the early 1500s to almost 1900, which
remains the largest forced migration in world history. The second, and more
recent, is the contemporary relocation and emigration of Africans in search of
political and economic stability.

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Though abstract and without discernable figures or direct narrative references,
Equalizer is what Odita calls a “conceptual journey” in which the interactions
of shape and color become metaphors for land and sea, movement and
settling, challenges and hope. The explosive image on the red wall illustrates
movement out of Africa. The adjacent wall to the right, strong blues and mauve
predominates, representing the Atlantic ocean which Odita describes as “all
tooth and treachery.” The next wall, where faint pastels blend to form somber
gray tones that then give way to bright, prismatic earth tones on the right,
represents potential and possibility. On the final wall, the patterns move from
more horizontal orientation to smaller, animated fractals that are a metaphor for
both the difficulties of immigrant life and the possibility that the African émigré,
whether historical or contemporary, may find a new place to call “home.”

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«The room is my interpretation of the tragic migration of black people as slaves
from Africa to America, and as well, the migrations/exodus of Africans from
Africa as a whole. It is a conceptual journey. The red wall will represent the
forced explosion from the center (Africa). Moving from this wall clock-wise,
Wall 1 is the waterway (the Atlantic Ocean) - all tooth and treachery. Wall 2 is the
great new land (America), first shown on the left-side of this wall in tonal grays
(as a metaphor for black & white -binary/oppositional thought/light), and on the
right-side of this wall in color to represent potential and possibility. Wall 3 is the
«terrain of difficulty» - as a field of today/the contemporary - active, and ever
moving - the story is not done here, and possibly in this place both figure and
ground merge - the African diasporan subject in quest for ‹home.›

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Odili Donald Odita