Meloncholy, 2000
from the series Sad & Bad
Lamda print from Polaroid original
80 x 100 cm
Edition of 15 + AP 3

In 1970 African-American film director, Melvin Van Peebles released Watermelon Man, a movie in which a fictional, white insurance salesman wakes up one morning only to discover he has turned Black overnight. The film is inspired by John Howard Griffin's autobiographical novel, Black Like Me. In this image Deacon gives the watermelon a double meaning. The emptied peel of the melon cradles the doll’s body, kind of like the coolamon, but it is also a fruit that has been severed from its skin. She challenges the relationship between identity, skin colour, and how

the world perceives and responds to both Blackness and Blakness. 

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