I am not an identity artist just because I am a Black artist with multiple selves.
I am not grappling with notions of identity and representation in my art. I’m grappling with safety and futurity. We are beyond asking should we be in the room. We are in the room. We are also dying at a rapid pace and need a sustainable future.
We need more people, we need better environments, we need places to hide, we need Utopian demands, we need culture that loves us.
I am not asking who I am. I’m a Black woman and expansive in my Blackness and my queerness as Blackness and queerness are always already expansive. None of this is as simple as “identity and representation” outside of the colonial gaze. I reject the colonial gaze as the primary gaze. I am outside of it in the land of NOPE.
via Glitch Feminism, A Manifesto by Legacy Russell.