I make art to claim and affirm that Black individuals are born to live and not just to die. Contrary to degressive white ideologies, Black individuals are here to breathe, move, explore, and be still within our own thoughts and pragmatisms. I use art to express and perform multidimensional and complex personal concepts of Blackness to claim our existence and survival. Performance is my medium because it firmly supports the fact that bold existence can be an act of resistance. My culture has always accentuated and utilized performity and exposition to escape misjudgment and brutality. The work manifests in various forms, and in private and public spaces. Often not just about the performance itself, but about creating a continued language and reach for prosperity. It delves into themes of self-revitalisation, vulnerability, social response, and community building.
Empathy is at the center of my practice and it, to me, is a tool essential for activating visual art as means for social change. With experience gained from past performances I realized my body is a vehicle that already carries histories within my presented identities. I create time-based endurance pieces and installations with my body and objects, alongside video, sound, and written work. These combinations bring forth new layers to conversations that test the awareness and empathic capabilities of the audience, while also evolving my own personal critical process and cathartic experiences with material. For example, the Grounded series, including nearly 400 lbs of soil, sand, or stone each duration, has been a four year exploration of public burials, Black death, rebirth, and universal fears that effect us and connect us far past our attempted avoidance of them.
Occupying the world as a Black woman is not often a quiet or peaceful journey. The conglomerate “Black body” is always on display. I first became aware of this in my hometown of Baltimore, but quickly realized the national and international impacts. We are always aware of our bodies and the otherness of them because we are always aware of the sickness and mortality that surrounds us. Fortunately there is also an underrepresented balance of resilience, creativity, joy, and individualism that exists in our worlds. This is what propels forward the collaborative efforts between myself and fellow young artists to resist reductive and destructive conclusions about Blackness. I’m passionate about working with other artists to honor multiple complex histories and realities while creating powerful spaces that hold us in, and simultaneously push us past our intricacies and nuance as Black individuals.
