— Born and raised in an Ethiopian and Malian household in Silver Spring, Maryland, my storytelling is rooted in my family’s ancestry, nomadic journey, displacement, and my navigation as a first-generation Black American. I am an anti-disciplinary artist, culture conservator, and community builder. My practice of experimentation rebels against boundaries and bridges the gap between reality and dreams. Through the use and marriage of mediums such as paint, fashion, film, sound, and sculpture, I create intimate supernatural portals that expand into surrealist dimensions.
By opening portals to heightened realms of consciousness within my work, that energy becomes a regenerative tool for resistance, radical healing, homecoming, and transcendence, where the veil ceases to exist between the spirit and physical sphere. I fuse Ethiopian culture, Oromo spirituality, healing magic rituals, Malian customs and mythology with diasporic affinities. I create timeless installations that take you on a ride through the past, present, and future all at once; exposing the shadow of humanity and allowing light to be shed towards radical self acceptance and transformation – with an interpersonal understanding of total liberation.
Investigating dialogues of the infinite Black existence, through Transness and Queerness, the stories I tell create an environment of revival and curiosity. My work is an intergenerational metaphysical oasis for individual and collective rest, rage, grief, love, and celebration that encourages others to nurture the creativity of their inner child.
Embedded into my artistic practice is my commitment and care for my communities’ mental health. I am the co-founder and creative director alongside fellow artist Navah Little of Tile ni Kalo Bet, a travelling African Trans and Queer creative wellness refuge, production house, and experimental artscape that resists institutional norms. Tile ni Kalo Bet’s mission is to create experiences that value and celebrate African LGBTQ+ artists of all genres throughout the diaspora and hold space for the complex and layered emotions of the Black community. I hope to extend this collective to aid, mentor, and create healing artistic opportunities for people of all ages from Ethiopia to Mali, and around the world.
Playlists curated to their practice: