My work focuses on the potential behind the identity of “Black American”. I create from the position that what it means to be a Black American is something that should belong to Black Americans. It should be theirs and developed by them, but the meaning of that identity has been snatched away at different times and in different ways by the Western World and labeled into confining terms. What if the hinderance of colonization had never left its mark on the expression of what it means to be Black Americans? What would political relations between Africa and the United States look like? What cultural exchanges and expressions would exist?
The foundation of my work is focused on creating and researching an intersectionality between Black Americans and Black Africans. It’s through the exploration of this concept that I’ve come to manifest a past, present, and future that delves into what the Black American would appear as without the colonization of Africa. I’m interested in speculating about a counterfactual history of an unforced immigration to America and integrating amongst others who were originally in the country as well as with others who have also immigrated into the country. With this alternative world I’m creating, I’m reimagining what the Black American would look after generations of being able to openly express their culture and lifestyles in this new United States during the 20th and 21st century. There’s a callback to the idea of Afrofuturism in my work. Though I am not adding an element of science fiction, there is still historical fiction of the Black American experience, and the aim to connect those from the diaspora to their lost African ancestry.
Black people, whether they are credited or not, are catalysts for cultural influences enjoyed by the world. Where they were deprived of the inheritance of culture, knowledge, and legacy, they created and built their own. I believe this to be true in both a fictional and factual world. The art objects I make are a way of connecting with this world I’ve created to explore the exchange of knowledge between Black American and Black Africans. My hope is to inspire the people and to be a catalyst of change for all black people to overcome our trials and tribulations of not only systematic oppression, but also perils of everyday life daily such as debt, maternal mortality, and other issues that plague the human psyche, particularly the black psyche.