This was meant to be a foreword for your book, addressed to readers; but as I kept rewriting and reworking, I realised that I needed to write these words out directly to you now, rather than prepping them for others to read and engage with. I deserve to celebrate you; and you deserve to be celebrated unabashedly m’dear.
I remember us having a conversation about a call for artists working on/around Black magic. And you were saying how you weren’t sure that you had anything that fit into this category. But I feel so passionately that we address all of your work – all that you ask of the viewer, all that you convey, and all that you refuse to capture – as iterations of Black magic.
Not magic in a world that equates Black magic to imagining Black women’s never-ending capacity to be available for someone else’s use. No, your work explores the truth and whimsy of Black magic by tending to Black emotion. Tending to Black being in motion. And through that, I’ve seen you insist on our right to illegibility, our right to focus in on ‘where the light gets in’ without abandoning the beauty found in shades of darkness. I’ve seen you face the cruel contradictions of the worlds we’re existing, and still reach for us to see and tend to ourselves ‘for hours of a moment’ [granted I’ll never forget spending weeks ruminating on the wisdom of your words only to have you say “…but are you sure I wrote them”].
I’m so honoured to witness how you witness our surroundings. There’s such tenderness in what you allow us to see through your focus. The way you stay, tenderly, with what you choose to illuminate reminds me how we can choose ourselves and allow our own reality to become our anchor for home. It’s my truest hopes for Black magic: the power of seeing and (re)imagining worlds that help us tend to ourselves.
What a gift you are to this world, my dear. I’m proud to be here with you. To have tended to our individual and collective selves with you. And to know that we will always be in this work together, finding ways to choose each other.
Repost from Inclusive Mosque Initiative Instagram post:
“These photos are by the indomitable photographer Wasi Daniju, therapist and former trustee at IMI. Earlier this year, Wasi submitted some of her photos to the The Royal Academy of the Arts Summer Exhibition. She made the the decision to withdraw them after the RA defended transphobic hate speech as freedom of expression. Now, Wasi is auctioning two of her prints to raise money for Inclusive Mosque and Gendered Intelligence.
For the opportunity to buy some of Wasi’s beautiful work, please click here“
