32.5 x 32.5
Digital Photography on Inkjet Paper
Queen Yeefah is my response to Saidiya Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation—the act of filling in the unknowable gaps in history with what we know today. I draw 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, successful entrepreneurs, activists, creatives and educators, all while facing systemic oppression. I imagine who we might have been had we never been kidnapped into slavery. The diadem (crown) I crafted from my imagination began this fabulation, followed by a self-made staff, fabrics, and jewelry from disparate tribes—or none at all—and face markings that appeared in a dream. 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