Artist, Sandra Mujinga: My name is Sandra Mujinga. This is my piece titled Flo. The work is titled after my late mom, whom I lost when I was 15.
I made it in a time when I was seeing holograms of celebrities that have passed—Tupac, Whitney Houston—and I was thinking of it as insisting that somehow technology could surpass death.
What you see when you enter the space is an illusion of a body floating in darkness that is modeled after a bodybuilder. I spent a period researching Black women bodybuilders. I was very much drawn to this idea of them expanding their bodies rather than making themselves smaller in space. And I started making what would be a homage to them.
What you see is also like a repetition, the element is flickering. One doesn't really know when the body's appearing and when the body will disappear again. I've, for the longest time, thought about these contradictions of being hypervisible and invisible at the same time, which I think is a reality for many Black bodies. I was thinking about strategies for existing under surveillance. I still somehow hold on to the dark space as a space for possibilities.