You know what would be dope? If every black tattoo artist, graphic designer, and tagger in the greater D.C. area, hit up the Inscribing Meaning exhibit at National Museum of African Art. Whether it's the graffiti signatures of Durant Sihlali, the anonymous body art of Iké Udé, or John Muafangejo's linocut titled "Judas Iscariot Betrayed our Lord Jesus for R3.00m," there's something to be inspired by.
And if that pan-africanist attention towards script and symbol could help form a unified symbology in the greater D.C. area black arts scene, who knows what code and design could come? Maybe we'd start seeing more inverted ankh tattoos, graffiti that includes kemetic lettering, book designs that favor scrolls over tomes. Even those not actively engaged in symbol making will find this exhibit interesting as it demands an answer to the question "What is a script?" We find that not only are we enveloped by meaning laden symbol, but that Africa is a home for a variety of sacred and profane scripts. While it's easy to lay these concerns at the feet of academia and dismiss them, when the notion of symbol is addressed in cloth design, jewelry, and books, it becomes an issue of the everyday. Then again it could just be we've been reading too much Samuel Delany.
