Symbolic Interpretation: The Sacred Geometry of Sanford Biggers
In a half-between world
Dwell they, the sound scientists
Mathematically precise…
They speak of many things
The tone scientists
Architects of planes of discipline — Sun Ra, “The Outer Bridge”
The Beginning
The first time I encountered Sanford Biggers’ work was at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. In 2012, I was a PhD student at Georgia Tech and seeking out exemplars for my research into ‘culturally relevant’ STEAM-based projects. Culturally relevant pedagogy is an educational approach that supports learners to uphold their cultural identities. Being culturally relevant often means incorporating awareness, understanding, and responsiveness to the beliefs, values, customs, and institutions. My research statement at the time was this:
This project seeks to advance discovery and understanding in STEM; broaden participation and enhance diversity; and enhance infrastructure for research and education by developing an agenda that communicates the value of culturally situated arts-based learning and design. Project activities and products are synergistic with local, regional and national initiatives that provide multiple access points to current knowledge, real objects, and authentic experiences.
A GT research travel grant enabled me to visit Sanford in his New York City studio where I saw the artist finishing one of his repurposed quilt paintings. At the time, Sanford was working on adding a bright green triangle shape when I took this photo:
I also used my travel grant to visit different museums where his quilt-based artworks, titled ‘Codex’, were on view. For his ongoing series, Sanford has been repurposing traditional, vintage quilts and quilt designs. Many of these quilt-based works represent the craft and hidden codes of Black Americans, which are often shaped by a history of enslavement, segregation, and ongoing struggles for civil rights and equality.
In 2014, I worked with then Ivan Allen College dean Dr. Jacqueline Royster to offer Sanford Biggers a residency with educational activities to support Georgia Tech faculty and students. I developed a resource packet for elementary and middle school teachers and worked with Dr. Ron Eglash (who was at RPI at the time) and his graduate student Libby Rodriguez to develop culturally situated design tools or CSDTs that allowed users to simulate ‘Afrofuturistic’ artworks using geometry and block-based computer programming (coding).
The residency culminated in a 2014 performance at GT’s Ferst Center for the Arts by Sanford and his concept band Moonmedicin. In 2021, I highlighted this work in my first full-length book.
The Outer Bridge
In the half-between world Dwell they, the sound-scientists Mathematically precise . . . They speak of many things The tone scientists Architects of planes of discipline…
Moonmedicin, a descendant of creative sonic experiments from the past, features live work that weaves found images of punk, funk, film noir, sci-fi, traditional dance, and Buddhism with original video content and improvised turntablism and veejaying. Some of the same band members who were present at Georgia Tech in 2014 were at MIT to perform with Sanford Biggers last night.
Sun Ra’s works are philosophical equations and he balances all of his equations. But there is a strange dimension of spirit in his system that sometimes makes the everyday world seem a not-so-subtle fantasy. This last element is African and related to the African way of living which persists in this country among the Blacks… — John Sinclair, Ann Arbor Sun, 1974
Both Georgia Tech and MIT Moonmedicin performances began with a video clip of jazz maverick Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Sun Ra pioneered Afrofuturism, a term that addresses the supposed conundrum of envisioning Black people in a technologically enhanced future. Sun Ra provided a STEAM blueprint for creators and performers working in the Afrofuturism space.
The Geometrical Bridge Across the Middle Passage
… geometry’s universal truths and cold precision stand in stark contrast to our expectations of cultural specificity and organic roots. — Dr. Ron Eglash, “A Geometric Bridge Across the Middle Passage”, 2004
I grew up looking at artworks by John Biggers who is distantly related to Sanford. Take, for example, John Biggers’ “Starry Crown” painting with three figures, each with faces that recall West African masks. Their hands and mouths are holding a string between them, forming the shape of a star. The West African (kuba cloth) and star-based shapes in the background were peeled away to create the crowns on their heads. These designs inspired Black American quilts. John’s use of stars and sacred geometry tap into Afrofuturism. His approach greatly influenced Sanford’s work.
Madrigal translates patterns patchworked in textiles into durable, boldly colored tiles with milled surfaces that replicate the tactile qualities of various fabrics. And just as scrap textiles are often used for quilting, Biggers sourced remnant materials left over from architectural projects for the sculpture’s surface. — Darla Migan, Madrigal: A Visual Tonic
Sanford’s recently installed “Madrigal” sculpture is on view next to MIT’s new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building (Building W18). This is where the Moonmedicin performance took place. The view of the sculpture changes as you walk around it. Like other works from the “Codex” series, each facet has a different quilt-based design. Most, if not all of these designs are based on ‘reflective symmetry’ and ‘transformation geometry’.
One particular pattern reminded me of Sanford’s “Kubrick’s Rube” (see detail above), a wall-mounted 3D sculpture that presents multiple geometric designs and 3D shapes. This design is referred to as the pineapple quilt block pattern that starts with a central square and grows outward by adding strips of fabric. This same pattern can be simulated using the CSDT software. From MIT’s website:
The work’s title, Madrigal, is a type of song composed for multiple voices singing in counterpoint. The metaphor of polyphonic music is one with manifold references to the site — a building dedicated to the study of music — as well as to the deep, abiding influence of music on Biggers’s approach to art… With Madrigal, dazzling visual harmonies (and discordances) are created as the work’s complex geometry enfolds six distinct quilt patterns into seemingly endless configurations. — Darla Migan, Madrigal: A Visual Tonic
Like his ancestors before him, Sanford Biggers has blended multiple disciplines, art and crafts, and perspectives. Sanford has developed a ‘taxonomy of symmetry’ in his artworks that can also be used to help students do mathematics (and computer science). The pineapple quilt block is one of several geometric and cultural patterns on view in “Madrigal.” Also, the shapes in the scultpture have been used for centuries to unlock mysteries of the universe and to tap into spiritual realms.
Moonmedicin first entered the MIT auditorium wearing all white, with glittery veils masking their faces to pay homage to African diasporic rituals such as ring shout and the Egungun, a traditional Yoruba society that goes outside to perform the task of freeing the spirits of the ancestors to enter our world in the form of living Egungun (trance entities), under the guidance of an oracle. The band members moved in a counterclockwise circle. “Wherever in Africa the counterclockwise dance ceremony was performed,” Sterling Stuckey wrote, “the dancing and singing were directed to the ancestors and gods, the tempo and revolution of the circle quickening during the course of the movement.”
Samuel A. Floyd Jr. takes it a step further in suggesting that many of the stylistic elements observed during the ring shout later laid the foundations of various black music styles developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. — Harlem Late Night Jazz
Sanford Biggers and Moonmedicin are Afrofuturist practitioners who navigate the past, present and future to give their audiences alternative views of a given moment. Sanford’s artworks blend, combine or remix the knowledge and experiences he has had as a Black American man and artist. Like Kendrick Lamar’s coded Super Bowl halftime performance, Sanford’s work challenges us (audience) to think more deeply about our present realities.