“Black like the nods between my Negritude North Star” is a series that depicts Black intersectional identities in BC. This series was born from the question: What happens if instead of reaching upwards and outwards to the cosmos, I reach inwards and laterally to the very cosmic experience of being in intentional intersectional community. 

Featured on the shortlist for the 2025 Kingston Prize, “Black like the nods between my Negritude North Star: Marcelo” specifically depicts my friend, Marcelo, gazing into the viewers’ eyes as his skin transforms between naturalistic browns to warm fiery solar colors and brushstrokes. He wears a bodysuit that becomes reminiscent of the night sky with stars, celestial bodies, and new universes dancing amongst each other. Marcelo is a frequent collaborator with experiences as a figure model, dancer, and a conduit of the power of embodiment and living out the dreams of your ancestors.

Black culture, creativity, labor, and ingenuity are often siphoned and exploited globally, while the actual Black people are disrupted, flattened, or erased. In Canada specifically, there is a culture of downplaying racism because the flavor and nuances are different than the history and present day reality of the US.
Often this leads to a particular kind of erasure, softening of violence, and stasis for Black Canadians.

With that in mind this series works to create a lattice of access points, a kaleidoscope of reflections, where Black people are the creators and the muses. Where Black people are archived, recorded, and given a through line into new futures. Where this lattice can represent the embrace, the looks, the casual nods, and the moments of care we provide each other. Black like the nods between my Negritude North Star is a series of paintings to tell our community; “I see you”.