This Artist Created a Black Queer Tarot Deck & the Art Is Otherworldly
| 02/09/21
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Kendrick Daye wants to reimagine the world of Tarot.
The Harlem-based artist has launched BLACK QUEER TAROT, a 78-card Tarot arcana reshaping the outdated, non-inclusive decks of the past that speaks to the beauty and vastness of the Black experience.
"Black queer people are forced to play catch-up in a sense to get truer reflections of ourselves in media form," Daye tells PRIDE in our exclusive interview. "I feel like not seeing yourself represented definitely plays a role in your idea of self-worth."
Scroll down to see a few of the stunning images and learn more about why Daye wants to share this project with the world.
What inspired this project?
I was initially looking around for a Tarot deck for myself. The choices I saw were either overwhelmingly white or if they were Black-themed, they geared towards cis people or were worse, made by white people, which I found strange. So I started toying around with the idea of making my deck with my artwork. Originally, I was just going to use older art I previously created. A lot of my art already looks like it could be the artwork for a Tarot card because I'm inspired by the occult and esoteric artwork. But being the triple cardinal sign I am, when I decided to pursue this project seriously I decided to not only take on the challenge of creating 78 new collages but photographing most of the muses for those cards.
The art is absolutely stunning. Pick one card and tell us the story behind its inception, creation, production.
Aww, thank you! Going into this project there were three cards where I had a very good idea in my head of what I wanted them to look like. "The Devil" card was one of them. I'm fascinated with the phenomena of sleep paralysis and I wanted to reimagine Henry Fuseli's oil painting The Nightmare, which depicts a sleeping woman with a demonic incubus of sorts on her chest. I toyed around quite a bit with what the devil looked like, but I settled on something that gave sinister and sexy. When it came to the muse I always knew I wanted photographer LaQuann Dawson to represent this card. It was even more perfect that he's a Capricorn and "The Devil" card represents Capricorn.
I have very few moments in my artistic career where a piece I imagined in my head came out looking exactly like it did in my head. I have even fewer moments where the final piece was even better than even I could have imagined. This was one of them. Definitely one of my favorite cards visually in the deck. I have all the cards running as a screensaver on my TV in my studio, and I swear most times when I look up randomly that card is there.
Why was it important to you to make Tarot Cards more inclusive? How did not seeing yourself on cards make you feel?
The whole idea behind this project was not just about inclusivity, but making something that reflects a really vibrant community that is normally shut out of the conversation in the media. I think based on who makes the decisions in this world, Black people in general, but specifically Black queer people are forced to play catch-up in a sense to get truer reflections of ourselves in media form. I feel like not seeing yourself represented definitely plays a role in your idea of self-worth. It's why I always aim to make work about Black queer people that can reimagine what our world looks like for us.
Not only do the cards feature Black queer people, but people of all body shapes and sizes and sexualities and gender. Speak on that!
I felt that was very important! The second the name "Black Queer Tarot" was chosen, I knew the deck had to be reflective of a diverse group to live up to that name. I wanted to make sure every Black queer person who picked up this deck could see themselves reflected at some point in the artwork. I was very aware of this throughout the casting process, but I never wanted to come across as tokenizing people. But I did want and look to include as many body types, gender expressions, sexual orientations, ages, and skin tones as possible that could reflect the widest range of our beauty as Black queer people.
What do you hope this project does for people?
On one hand, I hope we reach our goal to be able to bring this deck and other ideas for decks I have in my head to the physical world. On the other hand, I hope this brings joy and inspires my community. This project was a labor of love and a love letter in the picture to us. Also on the topic of representation, I hope this inspires other Black queer creatives to create work that centers our diverse stories where they are lacking.
Support the Black Queer Tarot fundraiser campaign!
Click here to help them reach their $25,000 goal on Indiegogo and you'll get a Tarot deck of your own!
