DOC 234—34/2
REX-13: 978-0882681/283
Blue blood is an idiom that derived from Spain and England in the 18th century meaning “royal, pure and of high nobility”. Those who were pale skinned were considered blue blood. This term was used to distinguish themselves from interacial and darker skinned moorish counterparts.
Gianna Hayes’s work interweaves remnants of the past to engage with postcolonialism, pan-africanism, ethnobotany, multicultural identities and seed sovereignty. In Blue Blood (2021) she explores the hidden commodity of Indigo dye within the Transatlatic Slave Trade; the plant pigment rooted in black resilience. Indigo is a plant pigment native to West Africa and beyond, which became a cash crop that fueled the African slave trade in the United States. Indigo was cultivated on stolen land and processed by enslaved africans on plantations owned by the British.1 2 yards of blue cloth was a common exchange for one enslaved human life. 2
1 Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life by Andrea Feeser
2 Indigo: In search of colour that seduced the world by Catherine E. McKinley
Gallery Images by Jessica Maurer