Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope
2020
This book examines Janet's continuation of her quest for control as heard in her sixth album, The Velvet Rope. Engaging with the album, the promotion, the tour, and its accompanying music videos, this study unpacks how Janet uses Black cultural production as an emancipatory act of self-creation that allows her to reconcile with and, potentially, heal from trauma, pain, and feelings of alienation. The Velvet Rope's arc moves audiences to imagine the possibility of what emancipation from oppression--from sexual, to internal, to societal--could look like for the singer and for others. The sexually charged content and themes of abuse, including self-harm and domestic violence, were dismissed as “selling points” for Janet at the time of its release. The album stands out as a revelatory expression of emotional vulnerability by the singer, one that many other artists have followed in the 20-plus years since its release.
Rebellious Inventions: Abstraction in the Black Diaspora
2020
This book by Dr. Ayanna Dozier accompanies the exhibition Abstraction in the Black Diaspora co-curated by Dozier and Tariku Shiferaw at FALSE FLAG, on view from October 24 until December 20, 2020.
The essay by Dr. Dozier centers artistic praxis to emphasize technique and embodiment as equally important aspects of art-making. This focus on praxis frames Black abstraction as an aesthetics of doing, rather than an aesthetics of representational meaning, restoring affirmative ontological, creative thought and action to abstraction’s relationship with Blackness in an era defined by anti-Black racism.
The book features illustrations of works by Adebunmi Gbadebo, Alteronce Gumby, Ashanté Kindle, and Tariku Shiferaw.
Screen Slate Articles
2020-present
Landing page for articles and reviews on film published on Screen Slate
Pathe-ways in Time, Bodies, and Aesthetics: Onyeka Igwe's Specialised Technique
2020
NON-FICTION 02 - NETWORK, piece is available to read in the second issue of Non-Fiction, available for purchase via the link and can be read online in issue 2 of Field Notes
Fucking Whiteness: Orientations, Desire, and Race in Camille Billops's Docu-Fantasy The KKK Boutique Ain't Just Rednecks
Black Women and the Edit of Shame
2017
Analysis of Alile Sharon Larkin's experimental short film The Kitchen (1975) for cléo journal, available for purchase in The cléo Reader (2019)
