Video & Performance > More Video & Performance

Dark Meat
Video
44 seconds
2009



Over much of my art career I have been researching and creating work related to the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. In countless interviews with psychiatric doctors, police investigator and journalists Dahmer denied race as a motivating factor in his sexual assaults, murder, and cannibalism. Though, ten of Dahmer's seventeen victims were black men (eleven if you include Tracy Edwards who escaped and helped end Dahmer's killing spree). My work around this is an attempt to give voice to these victims and at the same time, explore black sexuality and desire--the motivation behind Dahmer's cannibalism was, I believe driven by an inner conflict over his desire for black men while holding white supremacist ideologies. Through the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, I explore notions desire/repulsion and savagery---in history as well as present day. As well as, perceptions of so-called civilized behavior, which, historically has been visually synonymous with whiteness.