Nobody Fucking Asked You
Nobody Fucking Asked You, 3:04 minutes, performed at Pretty Pool Ranchette, 2021
Nobody Fucking Asked You is a response to the ceaseless droning of insecure, heterosexual men’s constant criticism of women. What women should or shouldn’t wear, what women’s bodies should look like, what we should do with our bodies, how women should act, how women should spend their time, how women should think. This toxic, controlling, and misogynistic narrative is often the breeding ground that leads to the notion that women are something to possess, a common theme seen in instances of sexual assault, rape, abuse, and domestic violence. In my own instances of rape and sexual assault, this notion of “I deserve this” and “this is owed to me” was reoccurring. Nobody Fucking Asked You is a humorous mix of sexuality and brutality, and an unapologetic “fuck you” to these expectations of women.
Field Order 15: And Other Broken Promises, Curated by Carre Adams coinciding with A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates
Press: In partnership with the Long Center for the Performing Arts, Carver Museum ATX presents: Field Order 15: And Other Broken Promises, an exhibit curated by Carver Museum ATX. In support of Martin Luther King Day with Ta-Nehisi Coates and on view through Black History Month, Field Order 15: And Other Broken Promises examines the paradox of American exceptionalism and the call for reparations. This exhibit engages artists of African descent around the concept of repair. Eleven artists were asked to consider what is required for America to atone for the continued denial of full citizenship to Black people and what repair would feel like in the body. Themes in the exhibit are presented through a series of short film-based vignettes devised around a series of prompts and displayed next to sculptural and two-dimensional works that explore repair, identity, and contradiction. Works by Alexis Hunter, Tia Boyd, Queen Deelah, Elizabeth Hudson, Kemi Yemi-Ese, Chris Hills, Moyo Oyelola, Joe Anderson, Carlton Wilcoxson, Elisha Luckett, and Hakeem Adewumi. Curated by Carre Adams.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist who penned the essay The Case for Reparations in the June 2014 issue of the Atlantic.
That's Showbiz, Baby!
That's Showbiz, Baby!, 2:27 minutes, performed at Pretty Pool Ranchette, 2021
This work takes inspiration from Patty Chang's separation of the interior and exterior self in her performance, The Fountain (1999), and Dynasty Handbag's humor and absurdity of her stand up performances during her show, Weirdo Night.
That's Showbiz, Baby! focuses on the impostor syndrome that many artists struggle with and general toxic and discrediting self-talk.
"Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud". Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve all they have achieved. Individuals with impostorism incorrectly attribute their success to luck, or interpret it as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent than they perceive themselves to be. While early research focused on the prevalence among high-achieving women, impostor syndrome has been recognized to affect both men and women equally."
I extracted the toxic self-talk part of my brain and gave it a mic, clown make up, and a stand up show, a confession. The clown make up signifies the "pretender" aspect of impostor syndrome along with the absurdity of these bad thoughts. Canned laughter plays through my speaker I bring out, as this is a performance for no one.
It was jarring to audibly hear and speak these phrases I've been repeating to myself in my own head for most of my life. I'm hoping that through further exploration of this character, I can reap the therapeutic benefits of this separation of the interior and exterior self.
2006 was the year I left you
2006 was the year I left you, 3:16 minutes, traveling performance from Spring, TX to Lakeway, TX, 2021
This is a 10-hour ritualistic recorded performance addressing the prompt, "survival" and the separation of myself from my past trauma.
Throughout my childhood, I suffered physical and verbal abuse. I ultimately chose to flee, with the assistance of my father, to Lakeway, Texas. Since leaving 15 years ago, I’ve held onto the guilt, anger, fear, and resentment. When prompted with the question “What does survival mean to you?”, my mind immediately went to that decision I made all those years ago. I chose survival then.
For this performance, I drove from the source of my past trauma, in Spring, TX, to the apartment my father and I ended up living in together after I left. 190 miles separate the two. That divided by 12 (how old I was when I left) is 15 (how many years it’s been since then). This number coincidence lead to the decision of stopping every 12 miles to burn a piece of a poem I wrote and cut into 15 sections.
The act of burning is common in ritualistic practices and ceremonies. To expand on the ritualistic aspect I used cleansing and purifying herbs I found while researching witchcraft spells for “cord-cutting”.
For each burial, I:
1. burned a piece of the poem
2. combined the ashes with salt, rosemary, and bay leaf
3. cut off a piece of a shirt I was wearing
4. wrapped the mixture in the piece of shirt (this was to combine a piece of my current
self with my past self)
5. buried the parcel
6. marked the site with one of the many fluorescent site markers stuck into my hair.
I also chose to keep my shoes off for as much of it as I could to remain grounded. Each burial site was pinned on a map.
This was an exhausting test of endurance and emotional limits, but I'm so glad to have done it.
(Mom if you see this, I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to tell you about it beforehand. I hope you understand my reasoning for this performance and my hesitation in showing you.)
2006 was the year I left you.
We had to be strategic:
Get off the school bus.
Grab whatever I thought I needed.
Quickly.
He’ll be waiting outside.
Engine running.
I ran to his car.
I never looked back.
I was 12 years old.
I often wonder what would have become of me if I stayed.
How many times I would have tried to kill myself.
Would I have ever succeeded?
I left you behind.
I brought the fear and guilt along with me.
The fear still waits, in the back of my mind.
Standing ready to be summoned at the very thought of you.
15 years, 5,475 days, 7,884,000 minutes, 1,471 miles in between us.
A relationship currently held together by the act of forgetting and pretending.
In fact, you’re so good at forgetting.
Pretending.
That it makes me wonder.
If it ever happened at all?
Was it you that asked me how I plan on fitting “all that” into a swimsuit for my first
middle school pool party?
Was it you that told me if you found another cup on the floor you were going to shove
it down my throat?
Was it you that kept a “special” studded belt, to regularly beat me with, (special
because it inflicted much more pain than a regular belt) on display to keep me afraid?
You taught me to hate myself at a very young age.
To hate you.
My own mother.
Water under the bridge.
Ignorance is bliss.
I will never forget the words you’ve said to me.
I will never forget the mental and physical pain you’ve inflicted on me.
I push it down in order to salvage what is left of what we have together.
What do we have together?
Who are you?
With every passing year my memory of you grows into further distortion.
To 12-year-old Alexis, crouching in the back seat, praying she doesn’t catch us,
counting down seconds until we reach the highway:
You did the right thing.
You chose survival.
You chose to live.
You will go on to do things you’ve never imagined to be possible.
You will rebuild your confidence.
You will see yourself as worthy.
You will know what it means to be loved unconditionally.
She chose to continue the cycle.
You will be the one to break it.
