AM Journal of Art and Media Studies
Seeing Blackness: Found footage and the archive as modes of investigation in the hanging of Marie-Josèphe Angélique
In this paper, I examine the mechanics, codes, and metaphors of whiteness in visual culture, using the 1734 hanging of the enslaved Black woman, Marie-Josèphe Angélique, in Montreal as a case study. This case allows for an investigation into racial regimes of representation and how media intertwines nationalistic rhetoric with statehood and belonging. Angélique’s story is deeply rooted in racial conflict and trauma, posing crucial questions about cultural annihilation and the deliberate erasure of history from collective memory.