Hank Willis Thomas We must dare to invent the future, 2023 Mixed media including contemporary African National flags Unframed: 151.1 x 151.1 cm
The series of quilts reimagines the flags of the states of Africa as source material for Willis Thomas’ ongoing quilt practice. Significant national symbols and colours are fragmented and rearranged into new constellations, using the folkloric quilt patterns of the American Underground Railroad as a guide. The titles are drawn from famous speeches or quotes from various Pan-Africanist leaders.
“You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the mad men of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those mad men. … We must dare to invent the future.”
Thomas Sankara, excerpted from an interview with Swiss Journalist Jean-Philippe Rapp in 1985.
This quilt draws on the North Star quilt pattern. A signal with two messages--one to prepare to escape and the other to follow the North Star to freedom in Canada. North was the direction of traffic on the Underground Railroad.
