Keijaun Thomas
“I am walking here and there
And nowhere and everywhere, now
It was like walking in the ocean
The bottom of the ocean floor, fluid
But situated on the ground, foundational.
Walking through the sand feels like finding, fine. Finding a path that leads to a history
A history that is my own and not mine
My entire family was with me, moving.
I felt the weight of a history so heavy
It moved me to keep moving, to keep.
A weight so full it felt like walking and swimming at the same dam time.
Swimming in an ocean much larger than myself, a body of scars and stars. Walking with our heads pointed up, ascend.
Moving with depth, the depth of a thousand souls on rafts built in our names. Tree rings reminded us of our age. The life expectancy of folks like us. Through troubled waters, wading in the water, we felt us in the reflection of ancient tides, waves of warriors, we said...
We’ve dreamt ocean and how to continuously rethink what survival skills look like and how to keep each other from being drowned, moving through the water on rafts built through our combined forces. We were there too. Carved into the bark of our stories, on rafts on the frontline. We ( Black people) are here! ”
BIO
Keijaun Thomas creates live performance and multimedia installations that oscillate between movement and materials that function as tools, objects and structures as well as a visual language that can be read, observed and repeated within spatial, temporal and sensorial environments. Her work investigates the histories, symbols and images that construct notions of Black identity within black personhood.
OWN WORDS
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