Grabbing Snatching Blink and You Be Gone, from the series Slave Coast

Known for her evocative visual explorations that highlight social and cultural issues of family, identity, race, class, and gender, Carrie Mae Weems is one of the most powerful voices in American art today. She captivates audiences through innovative installations that often integrate audio and visual media. Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone was made following her first visit to Africa. It is part of her Slave Coast Series (1993), in which she explored historical sites along the West African coast. Images and text panels present empty dungeons and slave forts at Elmina, Cape Coast, and Gorée Island that are among the most notorious locations where slaves were held before being shipped on the Middle Passage across the Atlantic.

In the AMAM's triptych, Weems combines two photographs of Gorée Island, Senegal (now a UNESCO World Heritage site), with a central text panel printed in blood-red letters. In the right panel, lanterns hanging from the ceiling illuminate slick-looking stones that line the way to the "Door of No Return" through which slaves exited to board outbound ships-shown here as a blinding white void. Looking into Weems's photographs of narrow doorways and dark corridors, we accompany her on a moving journey of remembrance through spaces both sinister and sorrowful. She makes of the journey not a lecture, but a shared experience. The first two words of her text, "Grabbing" and "Snatching," placed on separate lines, allude, of course, to the slaves' capture, often by surprise. However, Weems's last three lines, with their emphasis on "you," insist upon the viewer's participation, demanding that we ponder, on an intensely personal level, the sudden, terrible peril of the slaves.