ManicWorld Magazine

Why did you feel the need to touch on the past and the future in the exhibition?

There’s this quiet tension I’ve lived with for years, the kind myself and so many others inherit before you even know what inheritance means. A house full of things that were supposed to be for later, or for someone else, or too good to use. Objects waiting for the right moment and whole identities shaped around waiting, holding, preserving- but not necessarily living. I wanted to hold that weight up to the light.

My exhibition isn’t only about nostalgia. It’s about that razor-thin line between reverence and stagnation. Between what we keep out of love, and what we keep because we don’t believe we deserve something new. Some of the past taught me caution and some of it taught me courage, and I’ve had to learn to hold what works and move differently when needed. The future for me isn’t about escape, it’s about embodying authenticity, and space and choosing and creating something that feels honest from it. Even if that means I’m the one breaking certain cycles with no immediate blueprint.

I needed both in the room because when we talk about liberation- of the self and of our communities, it doesn’t happen in a straight line. Life isn’t linear. Some of our lessons repeat themselves until we’re ready to meet them differently. You CAN Sit Here had to touch the past, sit with the present, and imagine the future all at once. It’s in that tension that I prompt the audience to ask themselves: What’s worth carrying? What’s worth releasing? How are we using our imaginations within it all? 

– Which do you believe is stronger, your experiences or your emotions when creating art?

If you’re asking me whether my art is more rooted in life events and experiences or in the emotions those events stir up, I’d say it comes from both. Sometimes art comes through emotion because that’s the only way it can. When I need to express, release, or even just feel something rather than bypass it. There are also times when I let the emotion sit with me, not to regulate it or fix it, but to witness it. And eventually, those feelings pull something out of me, so it’s not stuck inside my body or my head.
My art is in the art, and whatever it pulls from is what it pulls from. For this exhibition, You CAN Sit Here, the work is rooted in how I feel about what I’ve lived through, but it’s also about the experiences themselves because so many people have been through these same things, even in different ways. So, it’s not one or the other, but about where they meet. My emotions help me access the truth of the experience, and the experience reminds me I’m not alone in it.

– Does working in isolation fuel your creativity or hinder it?

Just like the themes in You Can Sit Here, isolation and collaboration each have their time. They come in seasons, or even different hours of the day. There were moments in this process where working alone was necessary and deeply fulfilling. When you’re creating something this personal without a true collaborator, without someone nurturing it with the same reverence, vision, or passion, you learn quickly there’s nothing to rely on but your gut. Your root. The metaphysical and physical reality of self-trust has to bloom and integrate, right then and there.

Relying on my own counsel pushed me into another dimension of myself. There were so many rebirths during this process. So many releases. So many new perspectives and repeated lessons. It’s common when doing something new to reach for others’ perspectives. But time and time again, I had to come back to and watch how often I reached for people who simply didn’t reach back. That’s when I realised: this was an isolation season.

Still, the collaboration did show up in intentional ways when I asked and received. I had an old dance friend help me with lighting and camera operation for the film, I met my intern just two weeks before opening and that final-stage help was needed, especially with the physical setup. It’s a relief not moving heavy furniture alone and to be talking to yourself the whole time right before your debut opening.

Throughout the full two-year process, it was just mostly me: writing on whiteboards, books, post-its, typing, recording voice notes and listening back to sift through my ideas while figuring out a bunch of things I’ve never done before. I crave more collaboration, but I want it to be aligned, healthy, and reciprocal. I’m not interested in being the one doing most of the work on a group project or constantly wondering if others see or understand the vision. That dynamic can come from both projection and pattern: when you’re working from a wound of not being enough and others are fatigued by the scale of your idea. But it’s in my job as an artist and a human to discern, regulate and stay open to a life that creates and receives what I desire. 

– Describe the process of selecting the pieces for this exhibition.

I knew from the beginning I wanted a piece on the floor that said “Don’t sweep anything else under here” in vinyl, placed underneath a halfway rolled-up rug with a mirror sitting on the floor against the wall nearby, so people could still see themselves when they looked down. Next to that is a gold rotary phone I spray-painted, sitting on a gold podium. There were a lot of pieces I thought of that I wanted to feel like double entendres not just in the sense of having two meanings, but in how they reflected my truth and left room for someone else to find theirs.

This was my first time creating visual work like this, and I had to take risks. Some things didn’t make it in just because I didn’t have the space or equipment, but other pieces I got to try my hand at like the large wood board I picked up back in 2023 that I wrapped in gold and jewelled to become a prompt wall for people to write messages to themselves and each other. I sourced a lot of the furniture and materials for over a year and a half. I wanted browns, golds, and oranges not just because they’re beautiful, but because they speak to Black and Caribbean culture, to the solar plexus, to healing, power, sound, and legacy. I experience sound in colour, so my colour choices were tied directly to frequency and wellness.

There’s a piece called Give Thanks that I made by adorning a vintage peacock chair with reworked faux flowers. It’s one of my favourite pieces. The chair has a complicated history, found to have originated from Filipino prisoners hand-weaving them, later being taken by Europeans buying them after flying to the Philippines to watch them be made by the prisoners, and eventually becoming a symbol of Black power and opulence in the U.S. I wanted to honour that whole lineage while giving it new life.
I also included work by people who are featured in the film portion of the exhibition. I wanted it to feel like when you walk into someone’s living room and see artwork or special objects they’ve collected from their travels or received from friends. That’s exactly what I did here. It was important to create a space that was both installation and art, personal and shared. Everything was placed with care.

– Last but not least, if your creativity could only come from either your heart or your brain, where would you choose and why?

If I could only choose one, it would be my heart because that’s where the truth lives. My creativity doesn’t come from a formula or a theory. It comes from lived experience, ancestral memory, grief, joy, resistance, prayer, rage, and reverence. It’s the gut feeling before words arrive. It’s the knowing in my chest that tells me when something needs to be said, even if it’s not easy or pretty.

The mind is useful. It helps me shape, organise, and refine but the heart- is its own source. The heart knows what’s real. Every piece I’ve made, every set I’ve played, every space I’ve held has come from that place. I create from the heart because the heart remembers what the world tries to make us forget.