her own things is a visual conversation between Black women—an intimate reckoning with identity, self-love, and reclamation. The work begins with a question: What parts of ourselves have been taken, and what have we given away? Inspired by bell hooks’ theory of the oppositional gaze and Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, this body of work is both personal and political. It stems from my own experience as a young Black woman in a predominantly white art school, struggling to speak my truth in spaces not built for me.

Shange’s words—somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff—unlocked something in me. Her poem helped me understand that reclaiming my voice, my joy, my rhythm, my “stuff,” was an act of survival. And survival, for Black women, is a rebellious act.

her own things is a conversation—quiet, layered, and ongoing—between Black women about identity, memory, and self-worth.