Art

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] REFLECTIONS | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] I FEEL SO [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS and IMAGES by LAQUANN DAWSON [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2876" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2877" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]unnecessary. in a fit of joy (?) and nerves, a sparkling, smiling, stunning Little Richard chuckles to an audience of many. he is sent to the stage to induct Otis Redding into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. he laughs and he serenades the audience with music, history, and so many stories. he says, “see, y’all should be recording me. I don’t know why you’re not. and i’m still here? and i look decent? shut up! ooo-wee! shut up! make my picture. let the Black man make it too, go on. oh, he can’t find his button! mash the button Black man! actin’ like his light can’t come on. that’s the problem, we’re waiting too long now. mash it baby, mash it! you better mash that button quick! ooooo! i feel so real. i feel so unnecessary!” he laughs again. finding joy and spreading love when you’re in pain and when you feel unappreciated can be a daunting task, i’ve found. i am also wondering what it means to feel necessary these days. what are we supposed to fill our days and nights with? outside of survival, i mean, if we can ever get beyond surviving.  i do think images and words are necessary. i do think proof of our living and of our wellness are important. i do think we need to keep sharing even when we’d like to be invisible, or when we’d like to look away. a friend told me we are here because we want to be. i suppose all want doesn’t need to be explained or defended, but i’ve still got questions.  i am wondering lately if what i feel is exhaustion, boredom, and burn-out, or existential dread. joy and community remind me of the truth. a body and a voice are not disposable.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2878" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2879" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_separator type="normal"][vc_empty_space height="60px"][vc_column_text]LAQUANN DAWSON (he/him) (Brooklyn, NY, 1994) is a filmmaker, creative director, and photographer out of Elyria, Ohio now living in Brooklyn, New York. His interest in photography grew out of a desire to document himself and the world around him. At 13, he began making self-portraits and over the past decade has created a prolific body of work that has evolved, exploring themes of Blackness, isolation, community, desire, joy, and Disappointment. LaQuann is the visual director for MOBInyc and director of MOBItalks: A Digital Series, Risk Magazine’s content director, and one-fourth of HIM Podcast. He is the creative director and curator for Impulse Group NYC’s Our Light Through Darkness coffee table book. LaQuann’s recent work has focused on the visibility, the wellness, and the sexual liberation of queer people of color. ARC OF ANDRE is a contemporary ready-to-wear and accessories brand founded by Andre Moses in 2018. Coming from a lower-middle-class family that resided in Detroit, Andre obtained a degree in apparel and textiles in 2013, and ultimately moved to New York to launch his brand in 2016. Andre uses his own journey and development, or arc, as inspiration for the brand, exemplifying the thought that our upbringing and past socioeconomic status have a profound effect on our daily dress choices that we make in the present.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="50px"][vc_single_image image="675" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" qode_css_animation="" link="https://thetenthmagazine.com/"][vc_empty_space height="10px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row]...

02 December, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] FEATURE | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] IN THE ROOM WITH THE FUTURE [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2835" img_size="full" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text] WORDS by PICASSO MOORE PHOTOGRAPHS by AVION PEARCE  [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]Nearly a year into a global pandemic, and six months after one of her most intense PTSD flare-ups in a decade, Anyanwu faces a mirror in a white tank top with the bullet wounds she has termed her “battle scars” on full display. She’s newly engaged, reinvigorated, and flashing a megawatt smile. Nimbly, she glides a barber's clipper across her forehead. She shapes her own haircut and chimes “I’ve been feeling amazing this past week. My PTSD has been great!” While looking at herself in the mirror there is a distinct focus in her eye. It’s not the same focus she’ll later display while pontificating to the room about the apathy of her activist contemporaries, and it’s starkly different from the look she displays when leading groups of mixed and contentious company through a conversation about race and power. Her focus, in this moment, is not directed outward. It’s not intended to disarm or inform a room, but rather to preserve her hard-fought balance. She admires the sharply shaped-up woman in the mirror and generously gives herself the type of radical self-love people read books and meditate to try to muster. Her focus is striking and very clearly internal. She’s “feeling amazing” and her “PTSD has been great.”  Particularities of her condition aside, her sentiment is echoed by everyone in her apartment. We’re all feeling amazing, beaming to be in a room with, get this, actual people. Making art, conversation, and covid safe connections. Ironing out the logistics of a profile can always present challenges no matter the subject. Once hampered by rain, once by scheduling, and once by mental tissue left understandably tender after extreme trauma, now, it’s finally happening! Photographer Avion Pearce and I stand side by side documenting Anyanwu, as she exhibits dynamism typically possessed by characters in heightened and fast-paced television series. Like pistons firing, she’s off. First, about her plans for physical training that go beyond aesthetics and bolster emotional and cognitive strength, followed by a demonstration of intuitive mentalism that even the most hardened of skeptics would have to admit is more than a party trick, and then a stark shift to her disappointment—rage, even—at the community of American activists who, in her mind, have been apathetic in the face of the #EndSARS movement. Anyanwu’s fiance Tishara, a dynamic woman in her own right who works as a ballet dancer and educator, is at this point unsurprised by her partner’s vigor and eloquence—but still charmingly inspired. Standing on Anyanwu’s right, she quickly takes out her phone and begins filming. Anyanwu, laid across her couch, stares directly down Avion’s lens speaking passionately about how the gruesome murder of George Floyd galvanized the entire world in a way she’d never seen; adding that even in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis people showed up in droves to let it be known that the world was watching and will not tolerate such evil. “Where is that mobilization for Nigeria?”, she asks and demands. Motivated partially by genuine ideology, partially by curiosity and desire to witness her extemporaneous rebuttal when challenged, I ask what steps people in America can actually take. Citing the geographical limitations, the stress and danger of the COVID epidemic, and that the rapidly rising unemployment rate has surely made munificence a challenge for most, I offer that perhaps what we’re witnessing isn’t apathy but helplessness.  What follows is an immediate shift in posture and position along with a surge in conviction. Tishara moves further back to the wall, making sure to capture every bit of Anyanwu’s relocation. Avion adjusts the lights and continues to snap away. Now, perched on the backboard of her couch, she counters me while simultaneously engaging every entity in the room. Aware yet affected by the fact that she is being photographed. She expands on her previous point, weaving data with anecdotes and folklore. With her head high and her gesticulation mighty, she forces us to engage, citing the work of our elders who did far greater with far less infrastructure and access. It’s the type of occurrence that shapes the mythology of our heroes. A moment of revelation...

11 November, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] INTERVIEWS | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] KALUP LINZY: SHE'S STILL HERE [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] INTERVIEWED by JAMES POWELL PHOTOGRAPHED in TULSA, OK  [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="12px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]In the new world order, mired in pandemic, most social interactions have been formatted to the screen. After indulging and equally being force-fed a full spread of endless video conferencing, for the first time in a while, it was refreshing to be physically lost—knowing that once I found my bearings I would be sitting in person with multi-disciplinary artist Kalup Donte Linzy. Raised in Central Florida and a product of Gen X’s baby busters, a generation that was amongst the last connective tissues to the early stages of the Information Age, Linzy uses his erudition of American daytime television, southern aesthetics, and pop culture to have comic, yet challenging dialogue around the infamous threesome: race, class, and sexuality. It was not long after moving to New York City that Linzy would be participating in a group exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2005. That exhibition would lead to Linzy's permanent mark in collections of The Whitney, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and MoMA. Linzy’s talents were not limited to the blocks of Museum Mile but extended to Hollywood, television, and fashion, having appearances on General Hospital and collaborating with the likes of actor James Franco and doyenne Diane Von Furstenberg. Our dialogue explored ancestral acknowledgment, paid homage to 90’s Golden Age films such as B.A.P.S., and the impact of Tulsa’s haunting black history. We spoke about the importance of print, tactile experiences, archiving, and sorted through reasons for his visible hiatus from the contemporary art scene. In addition to the gift of his new album Paula Sungstrong Legend Recordings, we were left with the suggestion to exercise grace with ourselves and those around us.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2861" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]JAMES: This is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the so-called emancipation of slaves in this country, of African peoples. When you woke up this morning in Tulsa, what were you thinking about? KALUP LINZY: Some mornings I open the shades and it's sunny, and I do it to get some vitamin D. When I opened my shades this morning, it was raining. I was like, "It's raining outside?" Then I said, "Oh gosh. I hope this is a divine intervention with some help from the ancestors." That was my thought, that hopefully, with the weather not being so sunny, it won't get too wild.  I believe in God and Jesus and Buddha and all those things, but I also believe in the spirits of the ancestors and that they do watch over us. I call upon them sometimes. I spent a couple of nights, like a week or so, not being able to sleep. I questioned and wondered if there were ancestral spirits keeping me awake to deal with it. I went to a Greenwood's project meeting, and they were talking about the mass graves. They said, "People around here are literally dancing on their graves." I was like, "Gosh. I don't want to be dancing on someone's grave." When you walk out of my apartment on that street you can see some of the businesses that were destroyed; they have all these plaques. When I first moved to Tulsa, I knew about the Tulsa Riots that's now called a massacre, but I hadn't studied it in detail. I feel it's my duty to keep them in remembrance, moving forward. We can't change the past, but we can remember the past, come together, and move forward in productive ways.  JAMES: I want to go back to how we remember those ancestors. The nostalgia of listening to Keys of Our Heart and being a gay, Black man from the South amongst other gay Black men from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, watching your work, was comical. It was endearing. It was powerful because I could see myself, my aunts, and my grandmothers.  Let’s talk about the connection from your past that you have to your present. One of the gentlemen we work with—Bill Ferris, is a preeminent scholar of Southern history. Bill always says “if you scratch hard enough, you can always find some Southern roots.” We don't have to go too deep with you, because you're from Clermont, Florida. Correct? KALUP LINZY: I was born in Clermont, raised in Stuckey, a small, rural town. JAMES: Tulsa is emblematic of so many other points of Black capitalism. There's a couple called Sally and James Townsend in Clermont, who started the first AME church, and the first school for African-Americans. Towns like Rosewood, Florida have experienced destruction similar to the Tulsa massacre. KALUP LINZY: That's not too far from where I grew up, maybe an hour and a half. The Ocoee Massacre, which nobody is talking about, is closer to Clermont. They're both the suburbs of Orlando and the Groveland Four. I went to Groveland High School. We got that whole retelling growing up. The Klan actually came to Stuckey and The National Guard was sent for a week. My family gathered up all the kids and got them out. My grandmother was telling me one day how the Klan used to ride around Stuckey on horses and just harass them. I was so surprised. I don't know if she saw the look on my face or it was her own anxiety that was coming back up, but she stopped talking. I had one uncle, her brother, who would never talk about any of it. The newspaper always tried to interview him and he would never talk. My grandmother's oldest brother was a civil rights activist and a pastor of St. John's Missionary Church in Orlando. He was always talking about it and making sure we knew those stories and knew that history. My aunts, grandmother, and all of them were a whole part of that 1949 Groveland Four Raid. That’s what they call it. A lot of the white people there don't want to talk about it. They're just like, "Can we please move on?" I have had that with me my whole life. Although I don't overtly say it in my work, I have always been completely aware of that type of racism.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IyM0dTJf94"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]JAMES: These stories are frightening. What does that do to the imagination of a creator like you? Does it seep into your work in some way? KALUP LINZY: In the '90s, in undergrad, I did documentaries. One of the reasons why I did all of the voiceovers with different people of different races and cultures is because I was exploring language early on. It doesn't matter what your skin color is, your language, or your syntax. All of that develops based on the environment you're raised in. It has nothing to do with the color of your skin. You can turn your back, then hear someone talking, turn around and sometimes they're white. You're like, "Okay, why does she or he sound like that?" They're not even trying to be a hip-hop version or of the hip-hop influence, so to say.  I was thinking about that because in college, doing all the critiques and that sort of thing, I was making work that was surface and superficial at one point. I was doing the family documentaries and stuff. My family and some of the professors were like, "That stuff is kind of interesting." Then some people said, "Kalup, the performance stuff is a little bit more interesting," because I guess in the '90s, we did have a lot of that. We had the Rosewood movie. Everybody was wearing kente cloth. We were more concerned about Black-on-Black violence than we were about police brutality, even though it was still happening, but that's just what we were focused on at the time. My work went more performative, but I was always trying to stay aware of cultural and race relations.  People have asked me if I will ever explore some of the overt racism that happens in the art world. As Da Art World Might Turn, one of the pieces where it's dealing with the storyline of Dick is an actual representation of the friends I'm surrounded by in Florida, but I think the work can still reach people by having the majority of those characters be white. It's a universal thing, they will likely be open to that whole conversation. I don't want to be too overt with some stuff where people end up not being able to receive the message. That's one reason why it's cast like that.  I've been thinking about how to incorporate some of the Black Lives Matter stuff. What about those artists who have spoken up? I'm thinking of a character, an artist that has spoken up in the past, and his whole career was ruined because nobody would listen. So where is that artist now? Does that career get revived? Why, when our white male, straight artists burn down something or get away with doing something really crazy, it's sexy, but then if a Black artist does it, it's repulsive? I'm thinking about the politics of it. That's one way I'm thinking of some storylines in season four of As Da Art World Might Turn because I do feel like we're in a revolution. I don't see it ever not being in my work, but when it comes to dealing with it overtly and in more obvious ways, because I've always been subtle, I'm not quite sure. I don't know if that would take away from my approach to it or not.  JAMES: The art industry is a billion-dollar industry. Art is also a form of protest. Especially during the 1950s, with the Black arts movement that largely originated in places like Chicago and New York City, by outsider artists or artists that were not formally trained, and artists who were activists. With Black Lives Matter being at the helm of the movement, at least visibly, you see a lot of these artists addressing themes about race, sexuality, and gender. Do you feel, because there is now a value add, this type of artwork is selling at such a high rate, being a Black artist and talking about Black oppression is the trend? Do you think all of the art that's depicting Black rage and oppression is authentic? Or do you think it's been co-opted and commodified? KALUP LINZY: You're going to get me in trouble. I've actually been conflicted because I always question myself, which is why I put myself in my work—I don't want to be making money off somebody else's pain. If I'm going to explore that, then I need to be in there talking about some of the stuff that's personal to me, because I do think people are making money off Black issues. I just hope the artists and the majority of the white dealers that are making that money are supporting the communities in other ways. On one hand, if it's our pain then we have a right to exploit that, but I don't think we're the only ones exploiting that. It is trendy. It's bad to say from that perspective, but it is.  I'm conflicted, I'm torn, which is why now I'm looking to open an art house here in Tulsa in 2021 through art integration grants with the Tulsa Artists Fellowship to bring artists here. All artists won't necessarily be Black or gay or female, but it'll definitely be the majority. It'll be giving artists a platform where they'll get a stipend, get to stay here, and hang out. That's my social practice project, to give back to my community because again, I mined my own pain and also the pain of Black culture in my work. Although my work, it's not always selling at high prices—I get a lot...

04 November, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] REFLECTIONS [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] THE URGENCY: TABULA RASA FOR BLACK GRIEF IN AMERICA [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS by MARCUS ANTHONY BROCK  IMAGES courtesy of NEW MUSEUM  [/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner row_type="row" type="grid" text_align="left" css_animation=""][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="2/3"][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]“I’m not who I used to be, a part of my childhood was taken from me. […] It changed me. It changed how I viewed life. It made me realize how dangerous it is to be Black in America.” –Darnella Frazier, Grief and Grievance Personified[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]It is certain that Black life is a gift. I believe that all our humanities have gifts to share. We have inscriptions to leave upon each other and throughout the gravel, crust, and salt of the earth—but if only we could get on with the business of living and forego the strain of existing with swiveling necks—waiting for the next guillotine to drop, swarmed by a spectacle of ongoing death. We are not born with the instructions to shame, hopelessness, or pathology. Yet, along the way of living in Black bodies—of living in bodies—like a piece of papyrus or tabula, we are inscribed, erased, and written onto again until the bounty and beauty of Blackness are distorted into a tabula designed in the destructive image and ideology of the oppressor. We have been brought to the world by hook, crook, and by way of our ancestors, standing at our backs hurling us forward, crawling, walking, and rising. They carry us up over yonder closer to that ‘ultralight beam’ that the controversial Kanye West yearns, “We on a ultralight beam, we on a ultralight beam, this is a God-Dream.” One thing about Black people: we are truly descendants of a mighty oral tradition, and we will give you song, story, and some blessed assurance. But our lives in this country are continually under siege and Black people are continually intentional in their approach towards our grief.   I am forlorn—from writing about death.  I am forlorn—from thinking about death. I am forlorn—from singing songs of sorrow.  I am forlorn—with grief. I—am forlorn.  Still, I am hopeful that the ‘In Memoriam’ of Black people slain by the spectacle were not lost in vain, and that our grieving and mourning are not in vain.  It was a sunny, Spring afternoon when I attended the New Museum’s exhibition, Grief and Grievance: Art and  Mourning in America. With Mahalia Jackson’s “Trouble of the World” on my mind, I chose to attend on my birthday and would endeavor to experience the dichotomy of living with the anarchy of mourning. I would also arrive to pay homage to the work and life of Nigerian-born, Okwui Enwezor, who began to produce Grief & Grievance in 2019 with plans for it to showcase just before the historic 2020 election, but he passed away at the age of fifty-five years wise to cancer. The global pandemic left us in shambles during that same year, further delaying the opening and prolonging our mourning. Acting as advisors, artists, and curators, Naomi Beckwith, Massimiliano Gioni, Glenn Ligon, and Mark Nash were able to resurrect Enwezor’s vision and carry the exhibition through. Grief & Grievance is a tribute, but also a commemoration of the atrocities placed on Black life in America and the global civil unrest of 2020. I do believe Enwezor’s intention showed us that the work of sitting with grief is much larger than the grief itself—it was—and it is. I imagine it is grotesque, laborious, and empowering on another level to create an exhibition confronting the shock and horror of being Black and American, in a pandemic no less. And through it all, both a catalog and an exhibition were created as historical documents conveying the grief of Black Americans. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2781" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]In the exhibition book, Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, Claudia Rankine has republished, “The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning.” A photo of Mamie Till Mobley hovering dejected over the casket of her son, Emmett, in 1955 at his funeral in Chicago accompanies Rankine’s words. Till was originally sent to his mother in a pine box from Mississippi, where the grievance occurred. Even over sixty-five years later, racists and white supremacists refuse to let Emmett, nor us, rest in peace. Till’s memorial in Mississippi at Graball Landing along the Tallahatchie River has been replaced four times now. Racist vandals have destroyed the memorial sign by riddling it with bullets, wanting it made plain—we don’t belong here. As of 2019, the sign is now bulletproof and weighs 500 pounds, to fend off racial terror, or rather the psychological racial terror of learning about the number of times the memorial has been replaced from a litany of news notifications. So, in that regard, the condition of Black life is one of mourning, but I wonder, just how much longer can we mourn? We deserve to feel free.  [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2782" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]In just three years, the centennial of James Baldwin’s born day will undoubtedly implore celebrations of grandstanding. Like Enwezor’s exhibition, it too will be one of mourning, but also one of resilience and commemoration. Grief has taught me that these stories can live on and impact the maturation of so many Black people.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_row_inner row_type="row" type="grid" text_align="left" css_animation=""][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="2/3"][vc_column_text]During a 1990 interview with Bill Moyers, Toni Morrison paraphrased Baldwin’s words as a reminder: “You’ve already been bought and paid for. Your ancestors already gave it up for you. It’s already done. You don’t have to do that anymore. Now you can love yourself. It’s already possible.” And yet, the problem is that Black grief is one of psychological terror in a futile, but repeated, attempt to erode that possibility. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text]It is a grievance that a Black teenager, Christopher Martin, has to sift through the dirt that is receiving the counterfeit bill from George Floyd as the cashier on duty. During testimony, he recounted that he offered to pay for Floyd’s cigarettes himself. His awareness of Black people and the police is omnipresent here: ultimately he knew it all could have been avoided. Darnella Frazier, seventeen years old at the time, filmed Floyd gasping for air for more than nine minutes on her camera phone. Following that dreadful day, she said she shook so much at night that her mother had to “rock her to sleep.” [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2784" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]Taking this all in, I crossed the street to enter the museum. Black people don’t just understand Black grief, they have also recorded it. Perched on the outside of the museum was Glenn Ligon’s neon fixture, Blues Blood Bruise, originally conceived for the Venice Biennale, but a reference to a recording of teenager Daniel Hamm, one of the Harlem Six brutally beaten in 1964 and denied medical treatment. During an interview, he makes a slip of tongue, “I had to, like, open the bruise up, and let some of the blues blood come out to show them.” Following Ligon’s piece atop the roof, I was greeted with a familiar song as I crossed the threshold into the museum: loud, like a headwind lifting me up, carrying me into the space, and setting the stage, a repeated recording of Kanye West’s, “Ultralight Beam” from The Life of Pablo. Grief and Grievance occupied all floors of the museum, but before I could enter the space holding the familiar tune, I followed a young woman’s voice, narrating Garrett Bradley’s award-winning short film, Alone. A single mother, Black, shares an experience about how incarceration shapes a Black family. In choosing to marry her lover behind bars, she is intentional and making a commentary on choosing and defining her own happiness in spite of those who disapprove. She yearns for love. She yearns for freedom in this lifetime. Also within that room were the X-ray photographs of ritual funerary objects, “memory jugs,” by Terry Adkins. A juxtaposition, if you will.  I then sat to watch Arthur Jafa’s montage, Love is the Message, the Message is Death. I sat and consumed the montage twice, spending fifteen minutes on a bench, shaking my head, nearly in tears, and reciting the lyrics of West’s backing track through my mask, “I’m trying to keep my faith, but I’m hoping for more, somewhere I can feel safe, in this Holy War.” A closer inspection of Jafa’s work asserts that relinquishing to Black death is not the only option. We must not fold under that grief. Perhaps, the message is not death, because the spirit of Black people transcends such triteness. As Chance the Rapper beckons on the record with West and Kelly Price, “You can feel the lyrics and spirit coming in braille, Tubman of the Underground come and follow the trail.”[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPRo4R8HEr8"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]In Memoriam  During Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd, Darnella Frazier told the jury, judge, courtroom, and global viewing audience, “It’s been nights I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life.” Instead of Chauvin on trial, it was our Black children on trial. Her act of contrition, much like Martin’s, is a reality for teenage Black children who are now living with the trauma and the “condition of Black life” in this country. They are not at fault for the engineered system of anti-Black aggression. Yet, they wear the scars.  It is tried and it is true that Black people, in all our majesty, have been in a state of perpetual mourning in America since we stepped upon these shores shackled at our ankles. But, those are not our origin stories. Yet so much of our outward existence and portrayals around the world, in media, film, and art are wrapped in the trauma and systemic grievances flowing from our enslavement. Though we have created home in this country, Black people have mourned their homeland since we arrived here, and not just the physical homeland, but our spiritual homelands. In Zora Neale Hurston’s, Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, Hurston speaks to “the last known surviving African of the last American slaver—the Clotilda,” Cudjo Lewis, or Oluale Kossola. He speaks of Plateau, Alabama, which was once called Africatown, where he settled after his freedom was granted. It was a sacred place where they restored their rituals of song, prayer, food, and gathering to create an Africa in this land—an African American identity and culture. Scholar, Deborah Plant, found and edited Hurston’s work in a posthumous publishing  through the eyes of “the Last Black Cargo” almost ninety years later. I wonder when Phillis Wheatley was stolen from Senegal at just seven years old, did she think that we would still recite her poems centuries later to trace and hold our history? We inhabit the organic matter of our bodies, but what is true is that we will leave them, eventually. The body will die, but the spirit of Black people will not. The legacy is there in perpetuity, and we are here to make sure it thrives. The grievance is racism, but we must find a way to use the grief if we are to live out our full potential and leave our descendants with a reminder that we are not born of pathology. Before Enwezor’s passing in Munich, he wrote about the “national emergency of Black grief” and the assemblage of thirty-seven intergenerational artists who are responding to the emergency, imploring Black communities to aspire and transcend those images about...

09 September, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] ESSAYS | SUMMER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WHY TUSLA CAN'T FAIL [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] POST-PANDEMIC REFLECTIONS ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF BLACK WALL STREET, JUNETEENTH 2019 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS and PHOTOS by KHARY SEPTH [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="12px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]*MONEY*   On a flight to Tulsa this past Summer, I decided to binge the caricatured Killer Mike’s Netflix series, Trigger Warning, in which he performs a rather crude, doomed-to-fail experiment. For 48 hours, he buys Black for his most basic needs: food, shelter, transportation, and weed, thus illustrating for all the fools watching that there is no way to make America work for Black folk until it gives us our economic independence. For the non-fools who know and live the shit—not only do we know something ain’t right; at the core, we know we are owed.  In one commonly cited statistic, which a Howard University fact-checking project debunked in 2017, “A dollar spent in the Black community stays there for only six hours” versus days, if not weeks, for White, Browns, Reds, and Yellows. In a recent series of The New York Times articles highlighting “The Gaps Between White and Black Americans,” the disparities in all material living standards (housing, employment, and even intergenerational wealth transfers) reveal a cruel and cruddy truth: of all the cons of being Black in America—from the overlapping crisis’ of poverty and police brutality, it’s the economic injustice that is the worst of them all. Consider, for example, the story of Tulsa—Black Wall Street—where in the early 20th century on the old Indian and Oklahoma Territories, Black folk who’d migrated from the Deep South and beyond to the Bible belt boomtown, set up shop on top the biggest known oil field in the world at the time. Just two generations out of slavery, they built an extraordinary amount of wealth: “two Black schools, 13 churches, 2 Black movie theaters, a Black public library, Black-owned shops, Black-owned hotels, a Black-owned newspaper.” I arrived on a crisp Saturday morning and strolled along the legendary Black Wall Street to see it for myself. A crowd of Black Tulsans were setting up for the annual Juneteenth Celebration. Music was going, press conferences were being held, and a Black queer brother, Nehemiah Frank, whose people walked to Tulsa from Tennessee way back when, joined me to introduce the story—not the myth—of his ancestors. “My family was the third wealthiest Black family during that era,” he shared as we sat to chat in the sanctuary of the Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church (the only structure still standing from the Historic Black Wall Street era). “Fur coats, pearls, they had it all. We had it all. We had the best schools which produced the doctors and the lawyers and the pilots…the minds that would go to Tuskegee and learn to become Red Tails...

19 August, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] REFLECTIONS | SUMMER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] LESBIAN IS NOT A DIRTY WORD [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS by TIMINEPRE COLE [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2756" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]I worked for a corporate law firm in Lagos, Nigeria for about two years and stood out like a sore thumb because my gender expression was quite different from traditional ideals about how a woman should look. This meant there were whispered debates about my sexual orientation where the word lesbian was thrown around as some form of slur. One day the Ellen Show came on TV whilst a few of my colleagues and I were seated in the conference room. One of my colleagues said she was impressed by Ellen’s charitable deeds but was disappointed that she had to taint her reputation by being a lesbian. It felt like a personal attack on me. I felt the need to speak up in defence of Ellen, of me, and every other person who uses the label lesbian. I asked her what about being a lesbian automatically made a person who helped others despicable. She spat the words sin, abomination and unnatural at me with so much venom. In the heat of the conversation, she asked if I was defending Ellen because I was also a lesbian. I stood frozen for a few seconds before walking out of the conference room without saying anything else.  With at least four legislations criminalizing homosexuality in Nigeria, being a member of the LGBTQ+ community here means that most of the time we keep our identity buried to avoid any form of discrimination or violence. With the negative connotation attached to most of the labels, it is difficult for people who identify as LGBTQ+ to claim their identity—especially in public spaces. This incident made me recall the first time I was asked questions about my sexuality. I was in my first year of university, and a boy who had persistently asked me out for months with no luck getting a date started telling people I was a lesbian. He was conceited enough to assume that any woman who would say no to his advances was a lesbian. At this time, I was blissfully ignorant about my sexuality; I was fourteen and uninterested in romantic relationships. It felt unnecessary to question whether I was attracted to men or women. People often conflate gender presentation and sexual orientation. As a result, I have never been able to hide the fact that I am a lesbian. Even before I discovered my sexuality, they would look at me and all the ways I presented as masculine and assume my sexual orientation immediately. More often than not, this exposes me to high levels of harassment and violence from homophobic Nigerians. Most times when I get stopped by the police, and they realize I am a woman and not a man as they had initially suspected, they question why I am dressed in a masculine manner and independently reach the conclusion that I am a lesbian. I liked to think that as a fourteen-year-old I was liberal enough to not care about a person’s sexual orientation. As an adult, I attributed how I interacted with my identity to the fear of harassment. Now, looking back at all the effort I put into explaining to whoever confronted me then that I was not a lesbian, I am forced to interrogate my discomfort with the word. The first time I heard the term lesbian I was in secondary school. One of the prefects found two girls kissing and she reported them to the principal. I remember this day because we all stood quietly on the assembly ground under the scorching heat of the sun. The smell of sweat mixed with dust hung in the air as we wondered what offence was serious enough to interrupt classes. I could see the disgust in the principal's eyes as she looked from one girl to the next. She said, “You dirty lesbians, we are raising god-fearing children in this school and we will not tolerate this kind of abomination.” It was on this day I realized two women could be together sexually in the way that a man and a woman could. As I heard the girls cry out with each stroke of cane that landed on their buttocks, I unconsciously registered the word as the worst thing a person could be. After the incident in the conference room at work, I talked to my friends about it. Three out of four of them admitted that they found the term lesbian flinch-worthy and uncomfortable, but they could not really articulate why they refused to claim the label as their identity. I realized then that my experience was not that different from theirs, and I wanted to talk more about it with people who could relate to what I felt on a personal level. In these conversations with other lesbian women and non-binary lesbians, I found that a lot of us had and still have this aversion to the label. Panini, a non-binary lesbian says they have always felt weird about the term because it has always been used in a derogatory manner. "Even though I am more comfortable calling myself a lesbian, especially because I have made more friends in the queer community, I still feel hurt and ashamed when a stranger calls me that." Growing up in Nigeria, I was well aware of the old colonial homophobic laws still legally enforced in the country as well as new laws which criminalize the existence of sexual minorities. I often sat through religious sermons that reinforced anti-LGBTQ+ ideas, and at some point, I tried to make sense of these ideas. I understand how vital these laws and religious beliefs are in shaping perceptions and opinions where sexuality is concerned. L.Y., a masculine-presenting non-binary lesbian, recounts growing up in an extremely religious home with catholic parents. "The religious messages portrayed queer people as sinful, morally corrupt, and unacceptable. This made me develop low self-esteem. I would isolate myself from others [because I was] worried that they could tell. I was scared of my friends and family rejecting me." Just like L.Y., I was raised in a religious home. Most of my family and friends were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and my greatest fear when I started to embrace my sexuality was losing my family and friends. I never came out to my friends, but once I became visible in online spaces as lesbian their interactions with me gradually stopped—as if to say I had become infectious. “Even if homosexuality was decriminalized in Nigeria, a lot of people would still feel shame identifying as lesbian because of their religious conditioning,” Panini said when reflecting on how religion affected their experience. Lesbian as a word has also been used to ridicule and spew hate towards people who do not fit into neat feminine boxes, women who are fluid in their gender expression, masculine-presenting, or androgynous women, and non-binary persons who identify as female aligned. These standards, which are set by the patriarchy and sustained in all aspects of our society, are easily weaponized against people who look like me. For instance, Alex, a non-binary lesbian says, "presenting the way I do in Nigeria automatically means that people assume I am a lesbian, and as a result, proceed to discriminate against me. I remember when I was in secondary school, there was a clampdown on lesbianism because it was an all-girls school. My name would always come up on the list and I was punished for it. At this point, I wasn't even aware of my sexuality. My only crime was that I am masculine presenting. There is a constant anxiety that comes with living the way I do.” Though the experiences of femme-presenting lesbians are different, some still have an aversion to the label.  Mariam says, "It is easier living in Nigeria presenting as a femme because I 'pass' as a heterosexual woman. I do not suffer as much of the violent homophobia that masculine-presenting lesbians may have experienced. However, the fetishization and unrealistic expectation on femme lesbian women to perform for the male gaze still makes it difficult for me to identify as a lesbian in certain spaces.” When I was still dating men, it was a bland experience I endured in a bid to perform compulsory heterosexuality. I met nice men I could laugh with and hold conversations with, but the absence of passion or any form of sexual attraction towards them was obvious to me. I wondered if romantic relationships were supposed to be so unsatisfying. When I finally fell face-first into the world of loving women, I remember actually feeling something for the first time. It was like rain after a long drought. It was also ironic—I laughed at the memory of my fourteen-year-old self telling my coursemates, “I am not a lesbian, I am  just not interested in relationships.”  For a long time, I questioned whether or not I was bisexual. Later on, I eased into describing myself as queer. I discovered that so many others found it easier to identify with vague and ambiguous terms like queer as opposed to lesbian. Toby, who now lives in Canada where she is free to express her love for other women, said she remains averse to the word; "To be very honest, even though I am a lesbian, I would rather refer to myself as queer. I went to an all-girls catholic secondary school where we were constantly told that lesbians go to hell.” The first time I was brave enough to call myself a lesbian I was coming out to my younger sister. She asked if I was bisexual because she knew I had dated men before. I said “No, I am a lesbian. I feel no form of attraction towards men.” Then she said, “Okay, cool. This changes nothing.” It was that easy; It was just another random word like pineapple, flip flops, or balls. I realized then that I was only uncomfortable with the word because I grew up hearing people say it with disgust. Earlier this year I moved to London and it has been quite a freeing experience. On my first date with someone I was getting to know at an outdoor restaurant in Brixton, a random man walked to our table to start a conversation. He soon stopped to ask if I and my date were lovers, and fully insisted that we were even without a response from us. He was uncouth, but I felt joy in something about our interaction with each other—maybe the way my laughter poured out in deep appreciation of the person before me, or the way their eyes held mine with complete focus. It was the first time I had been out with someone I was romantically attracted to without being worried about how everyone else perceived us. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2755" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]These days, when a man asks me out I tell them in clear terms. Most times they are upset or even disgusted. They try to convince me that their penis can change me, but it has taken an entire lifetime and two boyfriends to come to a full realization about my sexuality. I am the kind of lesbian women unintentionally refer to as 'sir' and then blush when I respond in my soft voice. The kind older, religious, Nigerian women stereotype and stare at like some form of apparition. I am okay with all of these impressions. I no longer think of lesbian as a dirty word, instead, I associate it with all the things about myself that I love: short hair, flannel shirts, boots, leather jackets, and the kind of beauty that exists outside of patriarchal standards. It also pleases me to find that my experience is not one...

12 August, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] ESSAY | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] SOUND[ING] BETTER A READING OF GAYLE THROUGH THE ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE PRACTICE OF TAQIYYA [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS by NKGOPOLENG MOLOI [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]I grew up believing in the efficacy of speech as a tool for resolution. First of all, that everything could be (re)solved, and second of all, that speech was the way to get there. You’re angry? Talk it out. Hurt and confused? Express yourself. You don’t like something? Speak up. Speak out. Speak boldly. Speak openly. Speak frankly.  In some ways it is easy to understand speech’s allure; the very mythology of existence is grounded on the power of the spoken word— “Let there be light.” And there was light!  Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. (1) This is how the spoken word became the originator of any and all things (or so we are told).  But as I get older, I’m drawn towards an exploration of silence, non-verbal vocal emphasis, and other unvoiced ways of speaking. I’m thinking through powerful and perhaps more subversive ways of communicating. My sense of fatigue with “speaking up” is largely brought on by the loudness of social media and how that noise is translated, or not, IRL. We’ve become well versed and articulate in political correctness and woke politics—saying the ‘right things’ at the ‘right times’ and saying them loudly. The currency is in your thunderous voice and the sound it emanates, but of course, one (wo)man’s sound is another (wo)man’s noise where noise is simply thought of as unwanted sound. Impulse noise. Background noise. White noise.  My unwanted sound is speech that is rhetoric and a form of propaganda—it is too obvious, it lacks imagination, and at the worst of times, it is violent and deadly. Wherever speech exists (if it must), I’m interested in its undertones, the variations in pitch, the depth of lung capacity required, and the circularity of breaths between each word.  I’m interested in how each of these underscores social justice, and thinking about liberation through the sonic; sound [ing] better—where ‘sound’ is about pressure waves but also about resonance, energy, and the auditory impressions we have on each other. sound [ing] better. sound [ing] together. Genesis 1:14-15. King James Version.  [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2673" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="70px"][vc_column_text]In her book, Listening to Images, Brown University professor Tina Campt explores the idea of frequency as a site of possibility. Taking inspiration from British historian Paul Gilroy, Campt theorizes sound as an inherently embodied process that registers at multiple levels of the human sensorium where sound need not be heard to be perceived (2). Both Campt and Gilroy offer a framework of understanding life (particularly Black life) through sensory registers of sound that manifest a different kind of futurity. Here, I see the possibility of spoken language, in its gestural and aesthetic form, to respond to cultural, political, and social realities. Languages of subversion and resistance have existed and evolved in various parts of the world through responding to different moments in human history. Whether it is Fanakalo, spoken by mining workers from different parts of the African continent in South Africa’s mines. Or Camtho, which was spoken mainly by urban youth in the west of Johannesburg between the 1940s and 50s. Or the long-dead Polari, used within the British gay subculture. Language can offer political agency and obscurity in its performance, beyond the essence of facilitating communication. One such language is Gayle, which is a codified vernacular combining English and Afrikaans through an  arrangement of traditional female names carrying specific meanings.  Priscilla - police.  Shiela - rubbish.  Wendy - white gay man.  Dora - to drink/ drunk. (3) Believed to have originated in the hairdressing salons of Cape Town’s District Six, Gayle was largely used by the ‘coloured’ (4) gay community during the 1950s and 60s. It is considered a ‘gay’ language where “the term gay embodies a group of people who have adopted a particular perspective of reality which goes way beyond the bedroom” (5).  Although underground and hidden at first, the language has reached broader societies in different geographies and made its way into popular culture. It has evolved in form, content, and usage. Gayle is imaginative and performative and was a conceptual but also palpable argot of resistance (during and around the time it was conceived). It allowed members of the gay community to communicate, protect each other through passing information secretly, and to gossip. Its ability to facilitate gossip is largely as a result of its precision and characterization of humour. And of course, in most communities, especially so in marginalised communities, gossip is a key practice of pleasure that allows strong bonds to form. Gossip is also a form of knowledge production and distribution.  In the seminal book Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life, Tavia Nyong'o writes about the conditions of contemporary Black artistic production in the era of post-blackness. He notes that “gossip is the one true living archive.” Gossip is not just merely malicious truths, extemporaneous intensifications, and manipulations. Rather, it can be “deployed against hegemonic demands for legibility and transparency that so often simply expose and endanger minoritarian lives.” Similarly, one could argue that the use of Gayle in its entirety, over and above its function for gossip, is the employment of language against hegemonic demands for legibility and transparency where the typical insider (read white, straight, rich male) / outsider (read black, queer, poor) dynamic is inverted. Gayle, therefore, is an elusive strategy fundamental to survival. It situates comprehension and maybe even truth (a kind of truth) away from formal taxonomy and places agency on the speaker’s lips. The testimony is in the body where differences between language and body, subject and object, and fact and fiction exist in a single utterance (6). Priscilla is a girl’s name. Priscilla is also a warning to seek refuge from police who, through a long global history of police brutality, are to be feared and avoided. 2. Campt, T. 2017. Listening to Images. Paul Gilroy 3. Excerpt from gayle dictionary provided as notes in the 2018 exhibition “Kewpie: Daughter of District Six”. 4. Mixed race communities were classified as Coloured under apartheid laws. This categorisation is largely still in use to refer to mixed race people. 5. Cage, K and Evans, M. 2003. Gayle: The Language of Kinks and Queens : a History and Dictionary of Gay Language in South Africa. Jacana Media. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="50px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2672" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="50px"][vc_column_text]In an audio essay titled Contra Diction: Speech Against Itself, presented at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin) in 2016, Lawrence Abu Hamdan contemplates the workings of speech, truth, and silence in today’s all-hearing and all-speaking society by introducing us to the concept of Taqiyya. Taqiyya “is an old piece of Islamic jurisprudence practiced only by esoteric minorities that allows a believing individual to deny his faith or commit otherwise illegal acts while they are at risk of persecution or in a condition of statelessness.” (7) Taqiyya allows one to speak untruths by sounding words differently—the pronunciation of the word is what determines the truthfulness of a statement. So it is possible to denounce one’s faith (by uttering the words) without actually truthfully denouncing one’s faith (because the truth lies in the sounding of the words). I find the principles of this practice to be quite instructive and useful in thinking through language as a tool for survival.  “Truth lies in the ears of the beholder”, notes Abu Hamdan,“Taqiyya is never the expression of one clear position but a multitude of statements that all emanate simultaneously from one voice. Each of its numerous truths is forged by and for the ears of its listener.” Within this practice, one speaks to listeners based on the level of their readiness to listen, and on their knowledge of hidden meanings.  Abu Hamdan notes further; “Taqiyya is not unlike the freedom of speech. It is the right for free expression. But it is more like the freedom of the speech itself. Rather than the freedom to speak it is the freedom to use your voice to mimic and mutate to dissimulate in order to navigate the sometimes hostile terrain of those ears that prey upon your voice.” In both Taqiyya and Gayle, freedom of speech means the freedom to remain opaque. Secrecy is camouflaged by words which allows humans who exist in environments of precarity to create spaces of freedom. 6. Paraphrased from Abu Hadman. 2016. Contra Diction : Speech Against Itself. 7. Abu Hadman. 2016. Contra Diction : Speech Against Itself.  [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="50px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_separator type="normal"][vc_empty_space height="60px"][vc_column_text]NKGOPOLENG MOLOI is a writer and photographer based in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa and is excited and intrigued by history, art, language and architecture.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="10px"][vc_single_image image="675" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" qode_css_animation="" link="https://thetenthmagazine.com/"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row]...

24 February, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] REFLECTIONS | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] HOW TO MAKE A FRAGRANCE: SADE [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS and RECIPE by JORDAN BRYAN ILLUSTRATION by JACOBI MYLES [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]As QTIPOC individuals our ideas aren’t always valued and our work not always fairly compensated or credited. Even when this is the case, our bodies are rarely considered or even shown within our own work product. I’ve lived this in group uni projects, in bar and office jobs, in brothels waiting in the lineup, and on set for fansites and studios. It doesn’t matter where, and even in my role as a perfumer these days, I see no exception. The ads I see for my industry are invariably qwhite interesting. Whiteness in perfume is a lie (just ask the Himba, and definitely ask the NGO). More likely than not, it’s a lie in your industry too. We need to stop chasing crumbs—it is not in the interest of whiteness to (meaningfully and immediately) change a system that benefits itself—and build our own systems, proving we were here and that we mattered as ourselves without anyone's permission to matter. So I will teach you and I will teach you honey, to make your own perfume at home inspired by QTIPOC icons who have advanced our cause. Which is why I’m starting with Sade—because, who else embodies the Sweetest Taboo? SADE SOLID PERFUME (STARTER RECIPE)* INGREDIENTS 1 drop Rose Water (or 1 half cap rose water) 1 drop Nutmeg Oil (or 5 ml nutmeg powder) 1 drop Cinnamon Leaf Oil (or 5 ml cinnamon powder 40 ml Talc or Cornflour Cotton pad EQUIPMENT 50 ml glass jar with screw-on lid 3 x glass or plastic pipette 1 x powder brush or glazing brush INSTRUCTIONS Place the cotton pad flat inside the glass jar Add the Rose Water to the cotton pad Repeat with Nutmeg Oil, and then Cinnamon Leaf Oil (if using powders, premix and then pour in) Add the Talc or Cornflour Shake well, turning and rolling the jar as you do. When you open the jar, you should see an even colour, and smell the ingredients evenly blended together. Using the brush, dab the powder then apply lightly to pulse points (neck, behind ears wrist, inner elbow, inner knee) [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]*Above is just a starter recipe. Experiment with the scent proportions and add your own powders and scents in your cupboard, until the scent is right for you. Good places to start would be Vanilla/Almond Essence, Cardamom powder, and Ginger powder.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2648" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]To state a harsh truth of our chosen queer icons, regardless of their amazing contributions and allyship (Sade’s son is trans, and she supports him), the truth is that those whom we champion, revere and defend most, often need it the least. Because they have privilege within our community, or are simply born above it in the context of our wider social strata.  Very rarely do we, our community, accept and advance QTIPOC unacceptable to Whiteness. The poor, the non-conventionally attractive or able-bodied, the flamboyant, those unable or unwilling to ‘pass’ in appearance or manner. We need to question and unpack that, in context of shame and socioeconomic survival. That is the entire point of this column, so I’ll leave this here. Now, back to Sade. Born Helen Folesade Adu, known and beloved for her mystique and her trademark quiet storm sound. Nigerian and English, and asked to sing in her first band because she was black. She is now a respected Black Briton: a phrase breeding contention in the UK, but she has the OBE. Releasing their first album in 1984, Sade (the entire talented band) have since sporadically released 6 albums over 26 years. But it all began with ‘Diamond Life’. Specifically, the first song the band ever recorded and first single ‘Your Love Is King’ (though most people will know the breakthrough third single, ‘Smooth Operator’).[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="50px"][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ljpLQ1V6Y"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="50px"][vc_column_text]Released February 25th, ‘Your Love Is King’ is one of my favourite songs. Its smoky melodies, neutral grooves and husky vocal tones lead my mind to peace and my nose to a scent in the Amber family. I wanted to capture something defining Sade’s (the legendary frontwoman) ‘earned’ place (and I’ll get to that soon enough) in Black British history. The top notes in any fragrance are the first to evaporate in horizontal perfume, diffusing to reach the smell receptors in your brain. They “open your smelling experience of the perfume. To me, Rose is the opening for this song: structured, gentle and complex. This perfectly captures Sade’s musical style and, as a known symbol of England, acknowledges the band’s iconography. The open is the first 20 seconds with the rush of the hot high sax, calming down to a refined drawl.  And for those with darkness in their skin, the symbol of Rose is more jingoistic, something to be earned while somewhat feared and resented. This captures the tension of the term, “Black Briton” and how this “title” must be endlessly “earned” no matter your nationality. By making herself unknowable, Sade “earned” her Black Britishness in the minds of white Britons. Precisely in being unknowable, she challenges the idea that black people “owe” something or must be as others say. People can project their ideas of her, including myself, but never onto her.  This affords her a clean slate in the eyes of the public. That refusal to be known by all, and therefore to owe, is the point of this series and the reason Sade opens this column. She releases albums when it suits her, not the hourly demands and changes of the white-led music industry. Her simple, plaintive musical style doesn’t tick the boxes expected of a black female singer. Nor did it musically tick the boxes of her early era’s bawdy Brit or slickly produced American sound.  As for the “middle” notes, the main body of the perfume you’re wearing, the ingredients I have chosen would also differ from the pungent scents that littered the eighties. I have chosen Nutmeg instead. For one, ‘Your Love Is King’ was and sounds like a winter song. In husky deep vocals, controlled and unshowy in a musical era of vocal powerhouses, a simple ballad is sung about a lover. The emotion is felt, but so is a sense of craftsmanship. When I play this song, I feel quiet and warm against the cold. The Fender Rhodes piano is played painstakingly in phase with the live piano. Like Nutmeg, the song is a gentle spice to warm your heart against the bitter cold. Behind the restraint of Sade’s vocal delivery lies a timbre that is plaintive. This is not unlike the history belied by the tingly Nutmeg. It is known for its association with the VOC in medieval times, where slaves would work the ruthless Bandra monopoly on the supply. This again speaks to the perception of the term “Black Briton.” The bottom or “base” note is the last to be detected by your smell receptors. With the heaviest combination of molecular weight and intermolecular bonds, these notes linger longest. It is wise in perfume design to keep these understated. In ‘Your Love Is King’, this is the steady staccato groove of the bass guitar. It permeates the entire song, complimented by shakers and drum in a slow one-two step. That’s why I’ve chosen Cinnamon. Like Nutmeg, Cinnamon is warming. Unlike Nutmeg, Cinnamon has a more intense aroma and storied history. For a long time its origins were guarded most jealously, and its price fixed due to tall tales around the production. Cinnamon’s history underscores my point made six, thirteen and sixteen paragraphs ago: we cannot and should not exhort others to see our value. I love perfumery. In the crudest sense, I put smelly oils in alcohol, then doll it up and hike the price to flog it to the public. I speak no lies, and your faves all do the same, but there’s more work and nuance than that. Yet, no matter how much work goes into it, the art and science of perfumery is always centered around whiteness, and it’s not very likely as a QTIPOC individual, that my work will be truly seen or appreciated.  That’s why I’m writing this series, sharing these starter recipes, sharing these examples of great QTIPOC/ally rulebreakers. To ask that we all demand more. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="50px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_separator type="normal"][vc_empty_space height="60px"][vc_column_text]Jordan Bryan is a UK based writer who is the founder of Celie & Couch - an independent perfume house, supporting self-care and self-love. Bryan creates each scent by exploring memory and queer identity. Jacobi Myles is an illustrator whose imaginative use of color and balance provide a unique gaze into the black, queer heart and mind.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="10px"][vc_single_image image="675" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" qode_css_animation="" link="https://thetenthmagazine.com/"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row]...

23 February, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] REFLECTIONS | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] FROM BRIXTON, WITH LOVE [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] WORDS by NEMAR PARCHMENT [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2628" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]Many viewed Brixton as a spec of dirt to be ignored on the map of London—muddied with unscrupulous characters. When letting people know you were from Brixton, their faces would often scrunch up like a used piece of paper, their aversion to the area caused a physical reaction they could not control. It was defined by outsiders as a dangerous area riddled with crime and poverty. If you ever had the misfortune of visiting, grasping onto all personal belongings and avoiding eye contact were necessary to ensure your safety.  Growing up in the south London district allowed me to see past its bad reputation and truly bear witness to the beauty that resided within. Brixton was a beautiful place illuminated by rich Caribbean culture. A true sense of community lived within the residents, while the sweet scent of hard dough bread wafted out of First Choice Bakers and filled street corners. It was a flamboyant area with one of a kind characters where self-expression and individuality were celebrated. The place where my love for fashion was conceived. As a young boy I would spend hours getting lost in fashion books inside the rust coloured cocoon of Brixton Library. Books and papers laid scattered across the table where I resided in the back of the building sitting on a miserably uncomfortable black seat. Still, I would sit and read book after book after book, until my body paid the price. I began sketching my own designs and using them as a vessel to tell my own stories. Drawings of extravagant ruffles and oversized lapels represented my flamboyant nature. Bright yellows and greens became an expression of my Jamaican heritage. I felt free getting lost in the limitless realm of fashion; it felt natural, innate. I made a subtle pact with myself to forge my way into the industry, not knowing it would be a journey that the young boy consumed in the fashion books never had the courage to foresee.  You see, the imagination is a wonderful thing that allows you to create realms that have yet to take form in reality. Despite this as a child, I found it hard to dream of a reality outside the sand coloured blocks that made up my Brixton Hill estate. I never saw full thighs, broad shoulders, round stomachs or rich mahogany skin while trawling through those fashion books. As a person who possesses all of these underrepresented characteristics and is a signed model, five years into my career, it feels like a fairytale no-one was brave enough to write. Gracing the pages of fashion magazines, appearing in TV commercials and having my face plastered on large billboards has done more than just filled me with joy. It has given a voice and visibility to a demographic of people that are often forgotten in fashion. In many ways, looking back, my presence as a person with a large body who viewed himself as beautiful was needed at that particular moment in fashion to respond to the call for change in the industry. This call  would harken a new generation of shoppers and scrollers to buy into the belief that the fashion industry had become a more accepting and tolerant space. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2626" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]Even though a shift in representation created an exterior that appeared more welcoming, internally navigating the industry as a big bodied black man has not been the easiest feat. My 4B crown has often been met with hairstylists poking and prodding at it like a suspicious package, nervous to touch it, and brushing waves backwards against the grain. For makeup artists, my rich hazel skin would cause panic. Face beaters rifled through bags trying to find a colour to match my tone, often to no avail, sometimes bringing out face paint sets or telling me that my skin was “great” and did not need anything as their brushes caressed the faces of white models. For the wardrobe stylist, my body triggered a loss of interest which caused them to direct their attention to the smaller models. My sparse clothing options would hang lonely and isolated against the rail of  bountiful “straight size” garments. Often, I’d be asked to cram my body into clothing that was not my size, and those experiences are echoed by my model peers. In spite of this, being able to tell my story, and the story of an overlooked group of people through my work reminds me of the Brixton characters that inspired my love for fashion. Brixton was full of unique personalities with senses of style to match. People from Brixton played by their own rules and used clothes and style as a roadmap to tell the stories of their culture, thoughts, and beliefs. My mother was one of the greatest storytellers. As parents flooded through the ocean blue gates of my Church of England school, “Your mum is so cool” would often resound through whispers quietly cascading through the air. Oak trees stretched towards the sky and casted shadows over the playground as I walked like a little king drowning in my indigo blue school jumper toward my mother. It was typical for me to walk myself home, so to see her was a shift in scene and a glorious one at that; golden light fit for a queen filled the playground.Her long locs cascaded past her shoulders—a show of her strength. Her wrists were adorned in layers of glistening gold bangles etched with swirls of paisley, and her fingers were engulfed in precious stone rings—an expression of her honest spirit. There she stood—a rebellious African Queen residing in the body of a young Black woman born to Jamaican parents in post-Windrush London. There I was—taking it all in. The emotional quality of the stories that her clothing told came together so seamlessly. She was the storyteller, with a deep emerald cape swept across her body and stacks of gold bracelets resting on the bend of the wrist. I was the student, with a crumpled school book bag, and soot-coloured trousers with loose tattered hems which were an inexpensive fix for my recent growth spurt. How I wished I had the same pen to tell my own stories and express myself the way I wanted. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2627" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="100px"][vc_column_text]My mother was not the only storyteller I knew. On my Brixton Hill estate we had “Pops,” the resident elder, fountain of wisdom, and occasional disciplinarian. He had high cheekbones, rich onyx skin, and a wool trilby often sat upon his head concealing his short, tight curls. He would tip his hat ever so slightly when greeting you, inadvertently letting you know he was a man of tradition. He donned an authoritative blazer in a bleak, closely woven fabric that made it clear he was a figure to be respected. His hard bottom shoes were always in pristine condition and freshly polished.  The Brixton Dancehall Queen Pinky from the early aughts also had a pungent sense of style. She would weave together elaborate tales detailing the culture behind Dancehall music using only the colour pink. Her pink wigs, over-embellished jewellery, and pink mini skirts were all nods to the dancehall culture and the empowering sense of self-representation it promotes. After school my best friend and I would walk through the colourful Brixton streets with our ties loosened and blazers off feeling free from the shackles of our dull school uniform. We thundered down to Brixton Market to buy the latest Dutty Fridaze or Passa Passa DVDs, hoping to get a glimpse of what pink concoction Queen had chosen to adorn her body in. It was an event that never failed to disappoint. Whether it was her rose coloured finger waves, her bright pink bantu knots, her orchid colour cowboy boots, or her hot pink shorts, she exemplified what it meant to be fearless and unapologetically yourself. No place on earth has illuminated my soul, fed my mind, and left an everlasting impression on me in the way that Brixton has. My fellow Brixtonians taught me lessons about being proud of who you are by constantly celebrating our distinctions. Its vibrant streets and colourful characters created a unique space unlike any other. To the South London gem, thank you. The people that have resided there over the years bestowed upon me life lessons and exposed me to experiences that have made me the person I am today.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_separator type="normal"][vc_empty_space height="60px"][vc_column_text]Nemar Parchment is a UK-based, Bright Black Young Thing—full of energy and conscious of minding the gaps of a mainstream cultural conditioning that says, “Black man, stand down.” Making that model money may pay the rent, but Nemar’s creative pursuits as host of Another Space Podcast and  contributing writer at The Tenth suggests that his dream will take on all types of shapes and forms on his journey. [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="60px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="50px"][vc_single_image image="675" img_size="full" alignment="center" onclick="custom_link" qode_css_animation="" link="https://thetenthmagazine.com/"][vc_empty_space height="10px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row]...

16 February, 2021

[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height="90" height_on_tabs="50" height_on_tabs_portrait="50" height_on_mob_landscape="50" height_on_mob="50"][vc_column_text] INTERVIEWS | WINTER '21 [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] M+O [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="40px"][vc_column_text] TONYA HEGAMIN INTERVIEWED by GABRIELLE LAWRENCE ART by TONYA HEGAMIN [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="12px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]I was introduced to Tonya by the Director of my MFA program a couple of years ago, just  before I started putting together my thesis. We connected over our love of art-making,  particularly the use of paint to connect with our inner creative child. It’s something we can  turn to when the heaviness of our daily responsibilities feels suffocating. It’s one of the ways  we find play. I thought that be great context for our interview and time together. For this  paint N’ chat, we talked about Hegamin’s first novel, M + O 4ever.   In M+O, two small town teens from Northern Pennsylvania, who were once inseparable as  children, try to cope with the complicated realities of their emerging adulthood. Opal (“O”)  and Marianne (“M”) struggle to imagine viable futures for themselves, and despite their love  for one another, they can’t seem to find that perfect fit anymore. Or perhaps, the world just  seems bigger and more complicated, especially when you’re forced to live for yourself. As  Opal’s colorful support system rallies around her to help ease the weight of sudden loss,  fittingly, we learn about Marianne, our tragic hero, through the love-soaked lens of Opal’s  flashbacks. At the time, this story of two young black lesbians trying to determine the kinds of  lives they want to live was not mainstream. The book was buried, and didn’t receive the same  publicity or marketing efforts as titles that featured white narratives.   The Tenth Magazine, myself, and Hegamin came together to make space for this conversation  because we felt that Marianne and Opal’s stories hold something for us in the present. Tonya  and I talked about being an outsider, the complexity of black womanhood, the legacy of black  poetry, reigniting curiosity about creativity, finding new ways to take risks, the ways the  publishing industry fails black queer people, and more.  [/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height="80px"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_single_image image="2605" img_size="large" alignment="center" qode_css_animation=""][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="grid" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="1/6"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_empty_space height="80px"][vc_column_text]GABRIELLE LAWRENCE: I think I'm going to try and use one of these today.   TONYA CHERIE HEGAMIN: Oh, yeah. Sponge brush?   GL: Yeah, to cover some kind of ground or something. It'll be my first time using it  on a canvas, though. So we'll see.   TCH: I had a piece of paper, and I cut out some weird shapes. I'm going to use that to  be sort of a collage, well a stencil. Then I’ll go over it in different colors.   GL: Ooh that sounds like it’ll be pretty. I've mixed series of greens, and deep, dark, bluish violet-ish colors. I'm hoping to play with some brown, just all inspired by  nature. That’s where your book took me. I felt like I was on a hike the whole  time, or in the woods exploring.   TCH: Thank you. That's what I wanted her to be.   GL: So, Opal and Marianne.  TCH: Ah, yeah.   GL: Such longing and wanting. There's that scene where Opal is desperately  wanting Marianne to run towards her, and instead, she runs in the opposite  direction.   TCH: Never comes back.   GL: It hit me so hard, but it was so relatable. Their quiet relationship, where things  are known and understood by all but not necessarily vocalized or affirmed; the  silence of it all. Can you possibly talk more about why this is one of the first  scenes we’re introduced to? Since this gives us major context and insight into  these characters and the kind of space they take up in each other's lives, what  was your intention was in writing their relationship? What did you want to  explore there?   TCH: Well, I spent a lot of my childhood in or near woods. They played a big part in  my identity early on. I used to take other friends from the neighborhood, and  do "séances". I would make everybody wear handkerchiefs around their heads  and burn candles.   I was a witch from the get. I lived in a pretty much all-white area, so I knew  that isolation and the feeling of being the outsider from very early on. I also  think I felt like an outsider around people of color, and abused in many ways by  them, because we were all in an oppressive circumstance. Not to dismiss that  or to belittle it, but to contextualize it. So in a way I knew how both M and O  felt, but also, I didn't know. That left me enough space to exercise my curiosity and my imagination.   When I was a teenager, my mom started working in Rochester, New York. We  moved from where I had grown up, where all my family was, and everything I  knew. So we would take these road trips, we would drive through Pennsylvania, to Rochester, and we would pass through, or near, Punxsutawney. I would just look out the window and imagine what people's lives must be like in those tiny little towns, where it was just the highway going through.   I was always interested in history, so thinking about the ghosts that also  inhabited those spaces sparked my imagination. Those are the spaces in which  the story was born.   GL: I love that you used to do play séances in the woods when you were younger,  and that it shows up in your work. For me, Gran serves as the spiritual anchor  in the novel. Whenever she's in a scene, I now there’s going to be some spiritual movement.   TCH: Yeah that's the purpose of her character, to serve as an anchor. I wanted the complexity of black women to be throughout the novel. There's Gran, the  anchor, whose story is very interesting. Her backstory doesn't really get told,  but we know it's going to be as interesting as she is, where she is, and who she lives with. There’s her legacy, and the mother's legacy of living your own dream  and finding your own voice. Mom comes in as a magical bomb as well. Then  there’s Hannah, and her story that guides and uplifts all of these women. They’re all black women transcending in their own ways. I wanted to show how women, in general, transcend the spaces that they have been born into or  placed.   GL: What was it like braiding all of these narratives together from a craft  standpoint? I’m thinking about the timing of it all, the end of Hannah's story, a reconciliation, Opal finds her own peace. We learn more about why Marianne took her own life and her mother’s backstory. There's a big release towards the  end, very poetic, and it’s very satisfying. I was wondering if you could talk  about how you came to that ending.   TCH: Well, there was actually an entire other half of M+O that was cut by the  editors. So that sort of Russian combination is a reflection of that. And poetry,  that's my background. So it was definitely a part of what my writing really was  at that time. My other books are less of that, and I miss it.   Originally, I wanted the novel to begin with the ad for the escaped slave and  end with Opal's graduation from Spelman. To give that sort of context for the  arc of the story and the general arc of the varieties of paths that all of these women have taken in their lives. Those are little love letters, or poems, or calls to action, in some ways too   Just thinking from where I was in my life, my bachelor’s degree was in poetry. I  studied with Toi Dericotte at the University of Pittsburgh, and then also at Cave  Canem, so my sense of language was really built around black poetry. My MFA was also very centered around poetry. My first picture book is really a long poem. So I sort of created a novel by accident, because I was in my MFA, and if  there's a time to try a novel that's what you do.   I had started a novel early to apply, but that didn't resonate with me as much  as the newer work that I put down in grad school. I sold both of those, the  picture book and M+O. One in my first semester and one in the second semester. So, it kind of took off for me. A lot of it had to do with my relationship to language, my upbringing, if you will, in the annals of black  poetry. Michael Harper sat me down one day and made me learn all the poetic  structures and talk to me about theory and…   GL: THE Michael Harper?!   TCH: Yes! These are the very early days of Cave Canem. I watched Elizabeth  Alexander breastfeed her second son. Those were the days. Nobody was  anybody back then. We were all just kids, so excited to be black and poetic, and thought about.   I definitely felt like I was a part of making history in that time. That novelty  wore off eventually. The markets became flooded, and that's beautiful. I'm not  at all sad about any of that, but the work that I was doing, became more about  story and less about language.   GL: Can you talk about the difference?   TCH: Well, I think that there's a space for marriage there, but there's a lot of  courting that has to be done to make that marriage work. That requires a lot of  time, space, and energy. Once my diagnosis happened, it became harder for  me then to be in balance of a lot of things. I lost a little of my multitasking ability. I don't want to say all of it, or that I can't bring it back, but it was  something that really changed me. The ability to sit and think about poetry,  and words, and how things are said became secondary.   GL: Thinking about how things are said versus figuring out what you wanted to say?   TCH: Well, there's the constant. I always say my disability is like having a second job. It's very time and energy consuming in ways that I would have never thought  about before. The energy of poetry is incredibly thick, from my perspective. I  think in my next book, part of my main concern was about the story I was  telling. All of the research that I did for Hannah in M+O I wanted to put to work  in a fully historical manner. So I thought of work differently, and what I was  doing was the work. It’s funny because I'm doing a talk about the play imperative actually. It’s the importance of play in our everyday lives when  we're going through especially stressful times. Poetry was that for me. It was a  lot of play when I started out. Then it kind of became a different. I viewed it  differently and I thought it was simply because of my point of view, more than  anything. The work of being an artist, and then having to also be a full time  educator on top of that was a lot of work. So I think that in some ways, my  relationship to the world changed, simply because I was trying to just get shit  done. I know it's very unromantic, but...

11 February, 2021
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