I am a maker who collaborates with people and plants to create art objects, immersive installations, community groups and community resources. My artistic interventions facilitate the creation of infrastructure that supports people in my communities in cultivating cultures of collective power and care while navigating everyday violences of systemic oppression.
I am Miami based. I was born and raised in Atlanta, Ga and have been shaped by time living in NYC, Washington D.C., Baltimore, MD and abroad. My artistic journey began in church at 7 years old as a classically trained vocalist and bassist. I attended Dekalb School of the Arts, a magnet 8 - 12 public school, where I studied scenic and costume design. Additionally, my upbringing in the Black south–particularly in the traditions Black liberation theology provided a critical framework for the conceptual underpinnings of my work.
My first craft teachers are my hair and my plant neighbors. My craft research & education has consisted of self-directed experimentation, learning and practice with the support of mentors that I’ve collected along the way: Rose Whitehead (making baskets with foraged materials); Louise Wheatley (spinning); Ingrid Schindall and Lisa Haque (papermaking); Bak Henri of Bixa batik (batik and natural dyeing); Baltimore Natural Dye initiative (indigo); Academia Jalon in Malaga (millinery) and youtube university (weaving + all of it).
My practice is a vehicle for carrying forward the craft knowledge and traditions in my lineages while also stewarding the lands that I currently occupy. My material research revolves around materials, objects and techniques that have sociocultural significance to people in my mom’s Black southern lineages, my dad’s Yorùbá lineages and the lands that I occupy.I blend ancestral TEK(traditional ecological knowledge); with obsolete tech (hand looms and hand papermaking machines); with digital tech (procreate, digital cameras, audio recording). Ancestral TEK teaches me to collaborate with the land and my plant neighbors. Obsolete tech teaches me to collaborate with my body and my people neighbors to transform natural resources into meaningful materials. Digital technologies enable me to learn and collaborate across time and space; archive and create useful community resources.
