When do you first remember being creative, and what first drew you to it?

As a kid, I was always in the yard, the garden, the woods, making little dolls of cut grass and weeds. It was second nature and honestly of no value to me until an art teacher noticed and said “ You’re an artist!” It stuck with me yet at the same time didn’t mean anything tangible until well into adulthood.

Who do you look up to?

My Grand-Mothers, my Aunties, Migrants, and The Sea. Ama Ata Aidoo, Wangechi Mutu, Whiteflower, Toni Morrison, Bisi Silva El Anatsui, Kofi Agorsor.

How did you pick your medium? 

My mediums chose me. I fully committed to my practice later in life, after having dedicated much of my career in arts management, public art, and community engagement sectors. After a few years I took performance on, as a way to pull at the threads of my identity and understand the impact of being a child of migration. Performance is a supple and forgiving medium. It is expansive enough to contain my big questions, and tender enough for me to play around with the answers. Later on, that work turned my attention to a type of speculative scripture. I became interested in contemporary African migrants (like my grandmother) who quietly stewarded land and secrets — prayers and pathways left behind in the soil by abducted ancestors and indigenous rootworkers. So, I began listening, growing and making media out of plants raised in this soil.

How has your practice evolved over the years?

My practice really began in performance. Even though I had and hosted an audience, it was a very private personal practice of me grappling with myself in a lot of ways. I made the decision to dive into my practice after the pandemic forced me to be honest with myself about my desire, and shift my priorities. It was clear that I needed to find more ways to explore my curiosities that did not require my body to be on display. I wanted my work be in spaces that my body didn’t. I began by reviving my grandmother’s garden after a 35 year slumber and in the process was invited to let these plants and soil speak for themselves in new organic visual artworks, video works, and dynamic performances.

What questions or ideas are you most interested in exploring right now?

Right now I’m exploring the intersections between technology and Afro-ecologies. I coined a term “topophilia africana” to name a central line of inquiry guiding my research and material practice. I’m decoding overlooked cultural acts as complex conceptual technologies that, like rootwork, can archive and transmit knowledge. Past and ongoing projects speak to this way of making new works.