Gallery Talk via Zoom
on September 10th, 5-6pm
American Weeds Growing through Docile Garden draws
parallels with the defining of wild and domestic
weeds to take on the erasure and control of black
femme bodies and identity. To encourage discussion
about the psychological and physical fight against
misogynoir that black femmes are constantly in both
outside of and within their own communities.

The history of Black Southern femmes navigating our
place in American Society has a lot in common with
the narrative of the American weed brought over
from far away countries to task and multiply. But
once thriving past what was expected, the plants
were labeled weeds and black femmes were deemed
undesirable and segregated from growing in the
presence of those flowers found acceptable to be in
the garden. Resilience twisted against them and used
to justify their dismissal. Living in the intersection of
having others desire your physical, mental, and
emotional labor but not finding you of value. The
control, containment, and killing of them became
normal; and was even encouraged. Being defined for
what they can or can not provide to others and
anything outside of those external constraints being
erased, ignored, or deemed a problem.

With support from the North Carolina Arts Council and the
partnering arts councils of the Regional Artist Project Grant