"In explorations of the colonial and post-colonial in Africa, I believed I have embarked on a journey from which there truly is no return. However, I also believe that in our current, tumultuous world have the gift of the representational. I would be remiss if not to thank all of those who came before me, doing this work in far more dangerous positions, and certainly not from the comfort of a liberal arts institution like this one. I walk, with pride, in their footsteps. 

 

The work I have done in the past four years is wildly multifaceted and attempts to explore and strip away at issues of identity, diaspora, Africa, war, queerness, gender, and material. When discussing  work with a dear family member, I remembered asking whether there was an end to this kind of discovery, whether there was a point for which I should be reaching. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak to renowned writer, scholar, and teacher Maboula Soumahoro just last year, where I asked her a very similar question. Having worked with her previously on my podcast episode, I remarked that questions we were both asking coincided with the work that she has been doing for a number of years, the results and ruminations from which are found in her book ‘Black Is the Journey, Africana the Name”, a foundational text that has inspired much of my work at Bennington thus far. But I digress. In our discussion on identity and blackness and their poignant intersections, we came to realize that in fact it is impossible to ‘arrive’ at an identity, and I stand by my conviction that such an arrival would be a defeat. We remain ever-changing."

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- Tinashe Chiura