32.5 x 32.5
Framed Digital Photography on Inkjet Paper
Queen Yeefah is my artistic response to Saidiya Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation—the act of filling the unknowable gaps in history with present-day truths, enriched by elements of imagination and fantasy. Drawing from my family’s legacy of resilience—escaping slavery, keeping our family intact, achieving formal education as early as the late 1800s, and becoming property owners, entrepreneurs, activists, creatives, and educators despite systemic oppression—I imagine who we might have been had we never been kidnapped into slavery. This fabulation began with a diadem I envisioned and crafted, followed by a self-made staff, fabrics and jewelry from disparate or imagined tribes, and face markings that appeared to me in a dream. Together, these elements conjure a fantastical African lineage of royalty. Queen Yeefah symbolizes a descendant of rulers whose intelligence, entrepreneurship, creativity, and community-building shaped vast kingdoms. Through self-portraiture, digital photography, and autobiographical storytelling, I bring her to life, embodying an uninterrupted ancestral legacy.
28 x 28
Digital Photography on Inkjet Paper