She Will Strike Like Lightning is a multimedia installation that explores land, language, and labor as crucial elements for redefining a personal place of belonging. Collage, video, and spoken word poetry capture the process of transforming fragments of self into a holistic body that communicates this journey across generations. My initial research stems from an interest in the ways that environment, image-making and vocal expression have evolved across the African diaspora, and what it means to speak for oneself after a history of being spoken for.

Themes of physical labor are present in the work, from the production of clay artifacts that are incorporated into collage and video, contemporary photographs that reference memory and place, and the mining of black literary and image based archives. Emotional labor appears through poetic sentiments that address race, womanhood, relationship to the land, and the desire to be a part of something bigger than the self. Words like “belonging” and “identity” carry a systematic history of racism and the need to assimilate into a colonized existence. She Will Strike Like Lightning focuses on coming to terms with what it means to belong, and embracing the privilege to simply be.