Convocation

Fred Wilson explores such ideas as communication, cultural perception, barriers to understanding, and the unheard voices of Black America.  In his print, Convocation, he creates arrangements of etched spots and splashes, touching, overlapping, and forming masses, as a metaphorical matrix for his ideas about cultural dominance and race. For Wilson, the various ink spots represent the individual voices of the countless unheard voices of the African American community. The etching also features a series of what Wilson terms "conversation bubbles, " containing the words of Black fictional characters created by white authors. By Wilson's account, these "voices" participate in a conversation and help shed light on African American experience.