Why Do We Keep Going?
There’s something beautiful about artists showing themselves in their work; being influenced by experiences and letting that steer the creativity ship. I have always admired that, and so when I picked up a camera in 2017 (a gift from someone I used to know), I always wanted to take photographs of the people and things closest to me. The journey truly began in 2018 when I was in Houston and met Chase. Chase was one of the few Black men I met at work, we worked in a predominantly white institution with a lot of microaggressions as the side on the plate of subtle racism. I had lost my brother, Moses, a few months before moving to Houston and this job was supposed to be an escape. The idea of an escape through a new place and a new hobby drove me to some levels of insanity and calm, which I find hilarious.
Fast forward to 2022, the first Arrived show is put on, and I make a deal with myself that every show I feature in, I will make new work for and it will come from a real emotional place. We are now in 2025, At The Garden starts in a week (writing this on July 8th) and I have new images and a new film to debut. I sat at my desk to write yesterday but couldn’t conjure up the words even though I had spent some time in Volunteer Park with my mentor, Larissa, outlining what this piece is going to be about. I struggled to type but today, I feel refreshed, albeit scatterbrained. I want to talk about The Bear’s episode 8 from this season titled “Green”, my new pieces for the exhibition, how my losses this year shaped the new work, and “why do we keep going?”
I didn’t really jump to the new season of The Bear, as I usually do. I waited about a week and finally binged it in about 2 days. I avoided watching anything critically acclaimed or “specially handcrafted” as I like to call them over the past month because I was headed into principal photography for a short film and didn’t want to overanalyze any and everything about it. Through my binge of the show, I thought a lot about how every episode of the show really builds on top of each other to build a complete narrative. I know a lot of critics haven’t really liked the last 2 seasons of the show, my friend JG included but I have really liked it. The episode I really want to attach this piece to is episode 8, Green. I don’t think the entire episode is what moved me but the part of the episode with Lionel Boyce’s Marcus and Will Poulter’s Luca conversation about what makes one great and what makes their work great. The line “our work taste the way it does because we go the mess to get here” jumped off the screen to me. It led me to think about this conversation I had with an actor friend of mine, Tia Bannon (pictured below) about what truly inspires her performances? What is at the core of her psychological exploration that leads to her bearing her soul in front of strangers at the theatre or on screen? I think the answer to that is in the work, we get this performance or piece or movie because the artist went through the mess to make it taste the way it does.
The new pieces of photography and the film I will be showing At The Garden are all interlinked. They are in a lot of ways the same thing in different cases but also in a lot of ways very different ideas. I don’t find it helpful for me to tell you exactly how they were made or what they mean but I can say they are heavily influenced by the shitty start to the year. A start that was ridden with extreme loss and grief but somehow got on a bullet train and dropped me off at a station full of life, love and new true friendships full of true depth and support. As I write this, I think of all the things Michelle would say about this piece but at the same time, I am writing it in the presence of a new friend who is very dedicated to understanding the journey and practice of an artist, Seyi.
I say all of this to say, I am truly excited for y’all to come to the show I am curating and participating in next week, I will have more to say in person.
Before I leave this white page and my white keyboard, I want to answer the question “why do we keep going?” We keep going because it is all we got. The present, although a gift quickly becomes the past, lost to history without a map to retrieve it. But the future, the path ahead, the ideas we dream of, we have that. It’s ahead of us to forge and fuck up in all the ways possible but if you don’t give up, you answer the question “why do we keep going?” at your next rest stop.
Thank you for indulging me with this short-ish entry. See you next week!
Grab a ticket to the show on eventbrite, show starts on July 16 and ends on July 20!
