Following the success of her album, A Seat at the Table, which we urge you to listen to if you haven’t yet; Solange Knowles has teamed up with the Tate Modern to show her debut digital piece, Seventy States.

With every new project that Solange delivers, she proves time and again that she is much more than Beyoncé’s little sister. She is her own person, a talented and creative individual. First, she blessed our ears and our souls late last year with the afore-mentioned album, A Seat at the Table, which had the accolade of being the first time sisters, as solo artists, achieved number one albums on the Billboard 200 in the same year.

Expectations were understandably high as the Grammy award-winning artist debuted her digital piece at the Tate. Her project, Seventy States, is an extension to the museum’s current exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which is currently displaying until the 22 October 2017.

Solange takes a seat at the Tate Modern

Inspired by a photograph of artist Betye Saar, an artist figure in the Black Arts Movement during the 1970s, Seventy States is Solange’s reflection on black womanhood and identity to which she states: “There would be no hesitation should I be asked to describe myself today. I am a Black woman. A woman yes, but a Black woman first and last. Black womanhood has been at the root of my entire existence since birth.”

These sentiments are themes and issues that she explores in A Seat at the Table: “During the creation of A Seat at the Table and my deeper exploration into my own identity, I experienced many different states of being, and mind throughout my journey. I mourned. I grieved. I raged. I felt fear and triumph while working through some of the trauma I set out to heal from. The state I so greatly wanted to experience, but that never arrived was optimism. I couldn’t answer my own question, if I had a responsibility as an artist to also express optimism in the midst of working through so much of my own healing.”

The digital piece, which debuted on 25 August 2017, features unreleased performance pieces and concepts from the music videos Cranes in the Sky and Don’t Touch My Hair. The exhibition also features two untitled poems from the songwriter as well as a new music piece titled: We Sleep in Our Clothes.

Make sure you check out the exhibition, but for now check out her interactive version online.

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