artists statement

In the absence of amenity, in exhaustion, there’s a society of friends where everything can fold in dance to black, in being held and flown, in what was never silence. Can’t you hear them whisper one another’s touch?

 Moten and Harney (The Undercommons, 2013, p. 97) 

Translation is an art, one capable of crossing times and spaces, of crossing oceans, one that – just like salty water – conveys history, heritage, messages, lessons, nourishing our imagination, intuition and creativity. Our critical-creative practice of translating (oral and written texts, within the African Diaspora) is a kind of dance, known so well by Black people navigating this world. We believe that translating poetry is writing poetry. We believe in dreaming new worlds. We believe that every single thing we do sends ripples throughout the Atlantic, reaching our sisters and brothers and siblings across time. We believe in the magical power of words. We believe in the power of friendship and community. We believe there is no I without us. So we come together to translate, and translation is our ship to navigate the oceans, the wilderness, to do translation movements around the earth (and beyond it?), to be in, to cherish, to preserve and to create community.