Our viscerous expression withstands constructed understandings of self. Why does one attempt to put order into the chaos that is the infinite and shapeless condition of being ? A shift must be imposed. A tone must be set. We will not accept these tools of othering. Challenge yourself to recognize our creative output beyond concepts of identity. We are to be conceived above lines of our positionality . Understood, beyond, yet balanced in hyper-visibility and invisibility. We are expansive in our Indigeneity. We are expansive in our Blackness.We are expansive in concepts of racialisation. We are expansive in our queerness.

Why must we reach a boiling point in order to obtain social acknowledgement of our eminence? It is solely following race-based social unrest [often rooted in violence]  that we are reminded of the importance of our voices. The dissociation of those who hold societal power has led us to a normalization of this cycle. Our enabled ubiety mustn’t come at the cost of our struggle. The multiple forms of suffering and destruction of our bodies aren’t exhibitionistic sacrifices to liberation.We are not asking for permission. We don’t need to plead for respect. We are no longer justifying our presence. We hold in amplitude because we belong. Our practices of art, within themselves, are articulations of protest. Our inhabitance of space, within itself, radical.

Though Indigenous and Afro-centric understandings of the world have been erased throughout art history; We jubilate in them. Our artistry triumphs in their legacies and eulogizes our histories. Their holistic approaches reveal hidden knowledge that ensures our innovatory viability. Systems of artistic conception and conservation have been based on a constructed capitalist and White spectrum that has long profited off BIPOC expression. Discourse on the artistic agency of racialized peoples treads through a Euro-centric lens. We destroy the cult of the past. We are de-centering the gaze. We give power back to those who exude it.

We acknowledge unification as essential to our artistic liberation. Active discourse within communities has historically been at the heart of the journey towards the emancipation of marginalized people. We maintain these networks and strengthen them in preservation of our mental, spiritual and physical existence. Our expression goes beyond the individual and dismisses the insidious illusion that art exists for art’s sake. We recognize ourselves through each other’s artistry. By means of radical love, we are present for each other when the world isn’t. We deserve impervious care .We deserve places to hide. We need spaces of tender shelter.

Our concerns are that of Indigenous viability, of racialized futurity and of queer livability. We create our own senses of power. We mold our own structures .We redefine the status quo. We are displaced peoples defining our own barriers. Contriving our sovereign ideals of ownership and reattributing them back where they belong. Our contributions aren’t accessories to mainstream narratives. Our concepts of pluriculturalism aren’t a performance. We stand absolute and self-defined. We are here to break patterns where repetition without progress dwell.This [the boiling point] is not the beginning, nor is it the end. It is the space of transformation; that of rebirth.