Abstract
“We survived to tell the tale.” This dissertation explores the intersections of visual art, Black cultural memory, and spiritual labor through a body of creative and scholarly work rooted in Black textile traditions. Informed by the artist’s upbringing in West Baltimore and shaped by the spiritual and communal practices of the Black church, the research considers artmaking as a form of ritual, resistance, and remembrance. Patchwork, performance, and mixed media installations become not only expressive gestures but also repositories of intergenerational memory, sites of ancestral presence, and acts of survival that exceed mere endurance.The dissertation integrates creative production with critical theory, mobilizing concepts such as homeplace (hooks), wake work (Sharpe), and critical fabulation (Hartman) as both analytical tools and creative strategies. These frameworks are embodied across a range of works, including textile pieces like Scars Like Galaxies: For Peter and performance rituals such as Sew Me Back to Myself: A Blessing for Peter. Through the blending of digital and traditional textile methods, the use of liturgical aesthetics, and the invocation of Yoruba and Christian spiritual traditions, the work challenges dominant narratives and archival silences, insisting on the visibility and sacredness of Black life.Framed as both an academic contribution and an offering of care, A Balm for the Broken reflects on how aesthetic practice can carry theory, testimony, and healing. It honors the lives and legacies of the artist’s familial and communal ancestors—particularly his grandmother Ruth—as foundational to the research. Together, the creative and critical components insist that remembering is not a passive act but an active, collective process of stitching together what history has tried to unravel. In this way, the project becomes a visual and spiritual theology of Black survival, love, and liberation.
Awarding Institution(s)
University of Plymouth
Supervisor
Angela Piccini, Arun Sood
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Date
2026
Embargo Period
2026-06-19
Deposit Date
June 2026
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Beach, D. (2026) A Balm for the Broken: Bearing the Scars and Songs of Generational Survival in a World that Denies Our Humanity. Thesis. University of Plymouth. Retrieved from https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/ada-theses/125
