"Ink, Memory, and Motion"

Q: As an artist, how do you feel your mixed-race background has influenced your creative process? Do you find that your artwork helps you express parts of your identity that words can't capture? My creative process is constantly taking notes and performing words that sound good or interesting together, topics that stick with me, ideas for interesting shapes/forms/styles/performances, things people say. That is the making thing's part anyway. There is the inspiration part too, like what are your influences and for me that is probably more where being mixed comes into it like the reasons I love poetry are many, both my grandmas are big readers, my mum's parents were frustrated writers in some ways, my dad's adoptive father was a writer, dad also wrote – mostly bush poetry, my parents read to me a lot.

It wasn't till much later that I heard that Somalia, home country of my paternal grandfather who my dad never knew, is sometimes called the nation of poets and not really till I got to the city that I got to experience parts of Somali culture first-hand and even then...Music is also such a big part of who I am, even though I'm kind of casual about it these days. I know there is. I mean my art is mostly words, so I guess no but also yes ha-ha. I always say poetry is music with just words and so there is something more than what is written that is being expressed. I would say that yes in the sense that anything I make will be made by me and carry the weight of my life to this point but no in that I haven't deliberately written with that conscious intent.

Q: In what ways has your mix race identity shaped the subjects or themes you explore in your art? Are there specific culture elements or personal experiences that you feel compelled to portray through your work? I used to write about feelings of otherness blah blah blah but for the last couple of years I've kind of intentionally not done that because so much identity expression is essentially just branding and marketing at this point – especially in the arts. When I write about identity nowadays I feel like it's more as a product of the interests that have developed in the course of my living in this identity rather than coming from my identity itself... if that makes sense, like I don't feel I need to justify my existence but I am really interested in the historical currents that produced and the ways it is perceived. Also, as a note on terminology – I am not biracial. I think both of my parents would technically fall into the category, but I don't I ever heard either of them use that word to describe themselves. Personally, I refer to myself as mixed and not even mixed-race really like I just heavily identify with the term mixed. Like race is fictional and I am the boundary where it starts.

Q: Have you ever struggled with how others perceive your art because of your mixed-race background? How do you navigate balancing your artistic voice with your expectations others may have of you? I mean I think every artist struggles with how their work is perceived, but yes. I think there are spaces that I feel a little weird being in because while my experience is one of being a black African person in this place it is different from the people who are most clearly identified with that label. That's something I try to keep in mind and maybe get a little sensitive about sometimes but I think there is a danger in not recognising that position because there is also the other side of being in close proximity to whiteness and white people, I have definitely been put in the position of being a representative of African people, or even black people and people of colour more generally, in ways that are entirely inappropriate because while I have a complex relationship with identity if I'm in a space where there are very few people of colour I am somehow an authority. Like this is maybe a little glib and speaks to my own imposter syndrome, but if I'm your only black friend you don't really know anything about black people and you're probably afraid to admit it. Also to get back to the topic of art, I think there is a general trend under the current paradigm to sell yourself as an image or brand and that's what so much art gets reduced to.

The clearest example of this I can think of is having to write artist bios for open call/grant application type stuff, I've done enough to know that I'd probably get more opportunities if I put more about the 'exotic' parts of my identity in there and played up struggles I've had based on that. There's a big appetite for that and I honestly hate it like 70-90% of the time. I'd rather talk about what I actually do in my work, even in the bio, rather than use a million hyphenated euphemisms for 'other' so I can collect money from guilty white people/people who lean on the marginalised aspects of their identity to avoid talking about their rich parents or whatever.

Q: Do you see your art as a form of healing or self-discovery related to your biracial journey? Ho has creating art helped you understand and embrace both sides of your heritage? I have at certain points; I think music and poetry helped me a lot with identity struggles in high school and earlier in my 20's. I think since the healing through art has come from how it has put me in community with people who share some of those experiences and are also connected to culture in a way that is deeper than just being "othered", like it it's an actual culture not just being marginalised ha-ha.

Q: What purposes do you feel you've been gifted with as an artist? How do you hope your work will inspire others, especially those with mixed race identities, to embrace their own unique stories? Propagandist, therapist, mediator, helping people feel less alone and challenging them to consider other ways of thinking and doing. I want to inspire mixed people to be kind and to help build and maintain community, same as everyone, but I want them to embrace being challenging to all these outdated ways we categorise people – don't feel bad about 'not fitting in' or whatever actually learn about the gruesome origins of some of these ideas so when people bring it up you can use their discomfort to bring us forward.

"A Life in Words, Shaped by History and Rhythm"