Photography/Mixed Media
Not This Time is a visual meditation on how language operates both as a vessel of preservation and as a force that can estrange those born of it but disconnected from its origins. In this series, I don the costume of Wonder Woman—an emblem of heroism and deliverance—layered against a backdrop of the Vai script, a West African writing system historically used in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Here, the script becomes an ancestral code: a visual bridge to a lineage whose stories were disrupted by colonization and cultural erasure.
My work draws a parallel between this fragmented sense of belonging and the recent political climate surrounding Kamala Harris’s historic but unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign. Being amid a language I cannot fully read, Harris navigated an electoral landscape shaped by contradictory and often hostile narratives. The language that surrounded her—campaign slogans, media sound bites, and polarized discourse—both elevated and undermined her, reflecting the United States’ ongoing struggle to confront its own interests, biases, and contradictions.
By merging the mythic figure of Wonder Woman with the Vai script, Not This Time interrogates what it means to long for a return to a cultural home while being pressured by forces determined to obscure it. This project suggests that language—whether ancestral or contemporary—holds the power to fracture identities or repair them. Through costume, performance, and the overlay of a script many have inherited but no longer understand, this work becomes a space to mourn what has been lost, to reimagine what might be reclaimed, and to question whose stories are allowed to endure.
My work draws a parallel between this fragmented sense of belonging and the recent political climate surrounding Kamala Harris’s historic but unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign. Being amid a language I cannot fully read, Harris navigated an electoral landscape shaped by contradictory and often hostile narratives. The language that surrounded her—campaign slogans, media sound bites, and polarized discourse—both elevated and undermined her, reflecting the United States’ ongoing struggle to confront its own interests, biases, and contradictions.
By merging the mythic figure of Wonder Woman with the Vai script, Not This Time interrogates what it means to long for a return to a cultural home while being pressured by forces determined to obscure it. This project suggests that language—whether ancestral or contemporary—holds the power to fracture identities or repair them. Through costume, performance, and the overlay of a script many have inherited but no longer understand, this work becomes a space to mourn what has been lost, to reimagine what might be reclaimed, and to question whose stories are allowed to endure.
Self portrait
Known for its unchanging nature, gold symbolizes the enduring spirit of the African Diaspora. Just as gold does not lose its luster or form despite external pressures, Golden Vim: Untarnished aims to explore the indomitable nature, future, and beauty of Black culture that connects us and transcends borders. -.
The lapa (fanti in Mende) is woven with meaning and tradition. It is more than just fabric in the African Diaspora. During celebrations, daily life, and rites of passage, the lapa carries legacies of generations connecting us to our roots and the fortitude of my community. For the Mende and Vai people of Sierra Leone, the lapa is an essential part of everyday life. For me, it’s the timeless bond to my mother; safety. No Forget You Lapa explores the many ways in which fanti is worn and adorned.
