Reimagining Social Theory, Community-Based Philosophy, Confronting the Colonial Legacy, and Collective Healing Through Art: Vibrations of Absence

Given recent attention on the importance of community-based health with respect to those who have been historically marginalized, this paper addresses the multiple layers of colonial traumas that have been inscribed on the body, culture, and the psyche of minorities. The argument is that community-based art, grounded on antiessentialist philosophy, may provide both a critique and resistance to the existing status quo that continues to reproduce a colonial normalcy that is detrimental to the health of community members. Against this backdrop, the themes that inspired these pieces are reflective of the collateral damages that are ushered in by colonial imperialism. I borrow from Edward Said's Orientalism and the experience of being an Orient that has been transformed into the constant themes of turmoil, trauma, discomfort, and intensity which are all plastinated, frozen in place, in the image of the oppressor. Those who bear generational trauma endure the pain of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism predating their existence, suffering effects they did not cause. Hiding behind the logic of Enlightenment (pursuit of reason, objectivity, and scientific worldview), the dominant structures of the United States prey upon the marginalized communities through the tool of transparency. This subtle, yet real, violence is the source of the consequences known as vibrations of absence. This paper attempts at negating (denouncing) the legitimacy of a dualistic conception of the world that allows for colonialism to thrive, and positing (announcing) artwork through opacity that employs a community-based philosophy as a form of healing that resists and condemns normalized violence.