The back cover of the book jacket for THE HISTORY OF WE features a single sentence:
"In this fertile African cradle, the birthplace of civilization is found."
KOKILA, 2025
Words and painting by NIKKOLAS SMITH take readers on a time-travel adventure back to the origins of what we now call the HUMAN race. The journey confirms that human identity is not defined by skin color but by our capacity to create. These immersive, evocative spreads suggest the ways human beings developed language, art, music, tools, rhythm and dance, agriculture and architecture, navigation and astronomy, medicine and exploration. Those creations and innovations, confirmed by paleoanthropology, originated in the landmass we now call Africa.
That is the WE of this title, the empowering glory of human beings who found strength and growth and improvement in community and communication. The final double spread is a mural-like expanse of human faces of every age and hue, revealing (as we already know) that humans are not BLACK OR WHITE OR YELLOW OR RED, but have skin tones/blends of these, adapted and suited to improving lives where they find themselves. It confirms that WE are all cousins, rooted in our common origins and accomplishments. That WE ALL reap the benefits of what each of us contributes to the improvement of our lives and species.
Double-spread back matter offers short statements about each spread-achievement that is referenced in the glorious art and minimal text. Those small passages provide enough technical accuracy and terminology to allow curious readers to pursue further information, and a simplified timeline scrolls across the bottom of that spread to pace human developments through millennia. The artist/author note indicates that this work moves beyond his previous works that expanded unvoiced histories to suggest and celebrate the markers of our entire species, our relationships in time and location, and to hint at the possibilities that we, as a related human race, might yet accomplish.
This is a work of visual beauty, but even greater awe occurs from considering the wonder of our shared human race. The only context in which race has real meaning.
No comments:
Post a Comment