Stop 202 - Brides of Bondage

Brides of Bondage, 1998

Mixed media assemblage

Courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles

A bridal dress floats, ghostlike, and miniature sailboats chase its trail. Each boat is set atop a Brookes diagram, a reference to the British slave ship that shuttled between Africa and the Caribbean. First shown as part of Saar’s 1998 solo exhibition “A Woman’s Boat: Voyages” at Saddleback College Art Gallery in Mission Viejo, California, the Brides of Bondage evokes ancestral memories and the fate of women in slavery. In both installations, Saar explores the horrors and inhumanity of the Middle Passage.