AiR Honey Simone: (Black)Art
Behind the scene shot of an upcoming film for Different Wrld. Different Wrld is my living example of creating my own destiny through art.
Film Director: Spencer Kelly
Art DIrector: Honey Simone
Movement: Kevin Ruiz
Photo: Amba Guerguerian
It's a little past eleven in the evening on a Monday night & I guess this felt like the best time to lay out some of my thought process so far in this residency. I am not going to sit here and talk fluff, I want to be honest. I had no idea how challenging this would feel exploring this unknown world of digital archives with a trained mind that tells me I need to envision my end goal and work backwards. That is my process, and it always has been. I think about the outline of my big picture & then I build my plan back to the first step. I am aware things rarely go as planned but this still is my process. So to say the least I feel a little stuck.
I think I had an idea pre-planned when I entered this project. When I was given the premise of the residency I thought of something that I knew I could dig into & do well. So of course when I heard the word archive I thought about what I can relate to as a starting point of interest. So family records seemed comfortable until I realized that even thinking about diving in to that publicly felt like an invasion of privacy. So yea my pre-existing idea fell through, now what?
If you have tuned into our live conversations on Instagram you have heard me talk about accessibility, the absence of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) stories & a new format for archiving. So I have been thinking about solutions only to realize it was literally under my fucking thumb. There are quite a few of profiles representing the unrepresented in digital collections & American history as we know it. I genuinely felt joy coming across these pages; like I had come across a forgotten favorite t-shirt.
Instagram Archives:
@blvckvrchives
@realblackgrandmothers
@veteranas_and_rucas
@asiaartarchive
@quinceaneraarchives
@blacklesbianarchives
I came across a video archive about “Black Man’s Art Gallery” in San Francisco. In the video Juba Solo (Bill Thomas) speaks on black artists determining their own destiny. So I am allowing myself to determine my destiny in interpreting archives moving forward. I am dropping the notion that this experience was not made for me just because I couldn’t find myself easily. Although I wish it was different but this is the world we know and the only way I can change my experience is by creating a new one.
More on the Black Man’s Art Gallery: