Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, Sequoia Danielle Barnes (2024) (EMPIRE LINES x Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh Art Festival 2024)
Description: Artist and academic Sequoia Danielle Barnes redresses the ugly side of kitsch and ‘cute’ toy cultures, telling histories of trickster rabbits from Peter Rabbit to Bugs Bunny, appropriated from Black Southern American folklore from the 16th century to now.
With ceramics, fabrics, and super sticky slugs, Sequoia Danielle Barnes’ new installation is an Afro-surrealist retelling of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, a folktale developed by her enslaved ancestors after being ripped from Africa and displaced in Alabama, in the United States - the place she grew up before pursuing her practice in ‘transatlantic’ institutions. Here, stories abou...