Log 010924

I intended to build a soft world around Jacinda. A part of me saw it as protection. I thought maybe the softness could humanize her beyond our objectifying instincts. Maybe the vulnerability would inspire a softer gaze at large. The older I get, the more I realize that it is the softness itself that needs protecting. I fear I've grown callous from my attempt. A beast born from the rubble.

What’s fascinating is that it turns out we were surrounded by mustard seed poppies. For those of you who have never heard of the Mustard Seed Trail, colonizers would plant these seeds to travel north in California and use the yellow poppies that grew to find their way back. The irony of visualizing a protective force over my subject, in ritual with water as a vessel to rebirth, only to be heedlessly intruded on by the surrounding seeds of colonization..? 

This project was made on a whim with the engine of curiosity and play to drive us. We, I, embrace where we are. We’ve examined and interrogated the land. We’ve even built legacies on it. Maybe this is home now. Maybe the birth is as important as what came before.

Charles Drew University’s
Inaugural Class
for The Guardian

Also, look out for…