The title ‘The Blues’ is used here as a metaphor signifying the black voice – as a voice of resistance. The work uses the codes of movie posters as a popular form, to construct in each ‘untold story’, a critical moment in the confrontation between black and white. What the black man is confronting is the status of ‘whiteness’! The blue colour is also an integral part of the mise-en-scene of most crime movies. No matter what position he is put in; under police interrogation, in prison, in a low paid job, being an ‘invader’; the black man questions the white man’s identity. Yet the black voice is still a black man’s voice! So the work begins with the confrontation between men, and ends with the encounter between the black woman and the black man.
text by Homi K. Bhabha
