“No, but where are you really from?” is a slur that River has received time and time again. Her melanin and accent continue to mark her as ethically and racially different, as not ‘British’, wherever she goes. Thus, throughout her life, she has never felt a sense of home. To be a Black-British person in the West is to be somebody without a home. To be a Black-British person in Africa is also to be somebody without a home. For many, home is synonymous with their sense of self. It is a place where you have permission to be yourself. So, when home doesn’t exist for some people, from who, what, and where does their identity come from?
People’s identities are not finished products. From the moment you are born to the moment you die, your identity is always in the making. You must make and remake yourself in the society in which you live, and, for those in the West, that society is a consumer society. Thus, for those without a ‘home’, your identity becomes largely based on the choices you make as a consumer.
If you observe a town or city, at first it may appear as a collection of isolated individuals, or small groups of people, going about their business. However, if you look closer, people are not individual entities, they are connected to each other, to places, to things, and to the social world around them. Retail outlets, supermarkets, restaurants, entertainment, and leisure are sold as packaged products and experiences which influence how your identity is made and remade, and how people identify you.
River’s artwork examines how consumer society makes and remakes both people’s sense of who they are and who other people think they are. In particular, it considers how Black-British women find a feeling of ‘home’, a sense of self. It explores how they buy into the different personalities of products they feel give them an identity; match their racial background; change them into an identity they aspire to be; or give them the confidence to say “I am from…”
