Sarah Baartman was a South African woman who was enslaved and brought to London in 1810, where she was exhibited as a freakshow called the “Hottentot Venus” – Hottentot was the colonial term for Khoekhoe people, while Venus implied her exemplary exotic femininity. Put on stage as an object of scientific and sexual interest for European men, Baartman was paraded in public as “the missing link between man and beast”.
Reproductions of historical exhibit flyers depicting caricatures of Baartman and advertising these public displays of her body are the historical starting point for Black Venus, a new iteration of a touring exhibition curated by Aindrea Emelife, exploring how Black women make images of their bodies after a long and horrifying history of racism and objectification.
