Vicki Meek

quote ADVICE unquote explored female familial relations in contemporary African American culture and parallel relationships between women in traditional West-African culture. Ms. Meek created challenging installations using found objects, natural materials, text, wall painting, sound, and light, which grew out of her African-American and African heritage. She stated that her work had become increasingly about memory: “reclamation of lost memory, memory of past ills, memory of symbols, the memory of loved ones, the memory of cultural traditions and cultural heroes.” Creating finely tuned environments, Meek’s work attempts to provoke intellectual and spiritual involvement from her viewers and to provide cultural context for her experiences.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My work has increasingly become about the reclamation of lost memory: memory of past ills, memory of symbols, the memory of loved ones, the memory of cultural traditions, memory of cultural heroes. I am as concerned about my own reclamation of these things as I am for my viewers, for it is through memory that all cultural context is formulated. The installations I create tend to be very spiritual in nature, with the messages often being communicated more metaphysically than concretely. It is important to me that my audience leave my installations with some sense of involvement: my goal is definitely to “move” them, both spiritually and intellectually.