In Freedom: A Fable by Kara Elizabeth Walker-A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times with Illustrations, Kara Walker

uses the medium of the pop-up book to examine how this process might play out as artistic praxis. Freedom is set in a watery purgatory, decontextualized from specifi c time and place, and unspools as a tale of aborted African repatriation and interpersonal miscommunication. In Walker’s written text, N-, short for Negress, is a deeply confl icted colonizer surrogate, culturally divided and full of well-meaning condescension towards the blacks she intends to civilize in/on the way to the African homeland. In short, aboard the ship that will take her to her ultimate destination, perhaps Liberia, she is full of plans for the improvement of the race but is an unmitigated cultural imperialist.