Diaspora of Self

Medium Description

CMYK Silkscreen

Artist Description

Code-switching is an integral part of human interaction. The ability to read a room and tweak behavior based on the environment is something that I learned from a very young age. I grew up in a conservative, predominantly white town in Lowcountry, South Carolina. In this environment, I quickly discovered the difference between code-switching because I want to and code-switching because I have to. Slowly, I found that subtle behaviors such as keeping my hands in my pockets or walking too quickly would often attract judgmental and occasionally frightened glances.  To disarm this negative attention, I gradually became hypervigilant of these behaviors and began to mitigate them to feel safe in my environment. This piece explores the idea of fracturing and rearranging myself to fit into the environments that I have been a part of.