Straight Lick Exhibition Presents: SOUL ON FIRE
Collaborated with a group of 150 artists and curators for eight months to showcase the digital exhibition, Straight Lick. The exhibition shortly followed a physical installation and artist talk at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. I conducted cultural studies research to shoot and edit my short film Soul on Fire for the exhibition.
Soul On Fire is a brief, carefully curated film that serves as a visual essay, exploring themes of home, self-liberation and identity. The film questions the viewer to re-examine their preconceived notions of “home”. Through archival clips of rituals, migration, worship, dance, and mourning, one can see how collectivity is constantly forming and fracturing. This forming and fracturing positions people of African descent in a free-fall space while simultaneously facing pressure to exist in socially constructed identities. The film is constructed in dream sequences to raise questions about an individual’s sense of self within and outside the collective. Through Keguro Macharia and Stuart Hall’s theorizations on the Black diaspora, Naomi invites the viewer to imagine what a post-hybridity, anti-essentialist future looks like. https://straightlick.com/19-Soul-On-Fire-A-Visual-Essay-On-Identity-the-Black-Diaspora