April 2023 AIR: zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o'neal
We are excited to share the work of our April Artist in Residence zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal
Q & A
Q: Hi zakkiyyah, we’re so excited to have you joining us for April! I photograph a lot on film but have never experimented with overlaying images. Can you chat with us about how that came to be and how it impacts the dimensionality of your work both physically and conceptually?
The overlaying of images happened as a result of my desire to arrange the past, present, and what could possibly be the future in one image. I’ve always appreciated what collage and overlaying provided as far as collapsing and depicting different things within the same frame. I find it very satisfying to overlay images that were made during different times, places, or contexts and conjoin them in the present. It allows me to play with the non-linearity of time and how we might arrange our own memories of a feeling or a moment - this is how i process my own memories and subjectivity. It’s really exciting to play with and arrange photographs in a way that’s not typically encouraged or taught. With film photography especially, it adds that additional layer of multidimensionality and afterlife to the image, and how it can be read, or felt. the arrangements i create feel poetic in a way to me, because they’re rooted in an emotional sensitivity i have to spaces, places, and people. It’s gotten to a point where I’m constantly obsessing and mapping out ways to apply this to various projects, and even in my video work. As I evolve i want to continuously challenge myself with what it means to “make” an image and what becomes of it’s afterlife - the ways it shows up in the world, and how.
Q: It seems like a lot of your personal practice explores your emotional state of being and belonging, do those feelings change or stay the same when you show your work to the world? What do you hope people feel when they interact with your work?
The emotional states of being and belonging you’re referencing will inherently be a part of the work, because i’m always negotiating my place and space in the world and with myself. The work sometimes feel different depending on the context of the space and which communities of people are interacting with it. I think people have this idea that image-based work depicting Black bodies or Black people is always going to connect with other Black people, but i feel it’s more nuanced than that. I do feel a sense of belonging or affirmation when Black folks especially feel a connection to the work or feel affirmed through it - maybe not always through the images themselves, but in my way of conceptualizing, processing, or creating the work. The thought and intention within my work is always much more important to me, and that’s what i honestly hope is carried over to anyone viewing it. My hope is that viewers are able to experience shared feelings and/or shared existential moments with the work that might show up through a person that’s depicted, a place, or a space. I believe images trigger memories and questions or have the power to pull you in or away. Whichever way you’re pulled, i just hope you feel something regardless.
Q: How does desire show up in your practice and does that play into creating a specific “gaze that honors Black interiority”?
Desire owns me! Haha. but seriously. I think it’s one of the most constant emotions we experience everyday, this desire to want something, need something, feel something, be something, the list goes on. For me it’s equally as pleasurable as it is painful to desire anything. but within my life and practice, i’m always desiring to feel free, with myself and others, beyond my own condition. Beyond the conditions of being a woman, being queer/lesbian, and being Black. I love those parts of myself, but the work is sometimes a way to both sit with that, and be out of it. To just be. The relationship between my gaze and Black interiority as it regards my work, is essentially visualizing and depicting the nuances of Black existence that are self-constructed and expansive beyond the trauma, white supremacy, and marginality which have real impact on our lives. This also works in tandem with the desire, whether it’s embodied or situational - i’m always desiring constant liberation from these systems, and the ways they might steal away our time, our ability to feel whole, to feel love, and our capacity to listen to ourselves - to be in tune. I find a lot of beauty and meaning in things that can’t be reduced to my Blackness and gender. This way of thinking and living, as it also appears through my work is the honoring - to always view myself and Black people as whole humans with interior lives that are our own, whether they’re illegible to the outside world or not.
Q: What is something that has specifically been inspiring you and your work? Perhapsthere's a poem, book, song, or film that's at the top of your mind.
These 2 poems by Edna St. Vincent Milay and Harlem Renaissance poet/writer Jean Toomer have been on my heart. Kevin Quashie’s "Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being", beautifully renders and articulates so much of what i’ve been feeling. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria continues to haunt me in the best way, and i’m always listening to this playlist on rotation.
zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o'neal
zakkiyyah najeeabah dumas-o'neal is an artist, educator, curator, and arts organizer whose work is most often initiated by personal and social histories related to family, queer identities, self interiority, and belonging. Within her projects there's an overlying theme of trying to make sense of, and complicating what and who she belongs to across time, location, and space.
zakkiyyah has been included in numerous group exhibitions and has had several solo exhibitions at Mana Contemporary, Blanc Gallery, Indiana University, and South Bend Museum of Art. Her work has been presented in various forms at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, NADA, The Art Institute of Chicago, The August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Chicago Humanities Festival, DePaul University, and Harvard Graduate School of Design to name a few. She has also curated exhibitions at spaces such as Chicago Art Department, Blanc gallery and Washington Park Arts Incubator at the University of Chicago to name a few. She was recently a 2021 Artist in Residence at Arts and Public Life at University of Chicago and a 2021 Artist in Residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.
zakkiyyah is a co-founder and organizer of CBIM (Concerned Black Image Makers): a collective of Black artists, thinkers, and curators that prioritize shared experiences and concerns by lens based artists of the Black diaspora.