via Matt Hardy / unsplash
As a fan of astrology, I’m ever intrigued by cusper personalities, those who happen to have birthdays on the edges of two signs. They neither entirely belong to one side or the other, nor any place in particular. Likewise, as an Ethiopian-American, born and raised in Washington, DC, living in Addis Ababa, I’m drawn to the hyphenate that separates my identities, the in-between that encapsulates me. (Subscribers, scroll down to read a poem inspired by the “in-between.”) Much of my making and inquiry as a multidisciplinary artist is based on my fascination with notions of liminality and intersectionality, the points and the pieces that connect two or more sides of any given individual or object with seemingly disparate, but related counterparts.
My experimental oral-history-turned-visual-anthology is no different. Though JOURNEY(S) may be about six women from Addis Ababa, the project’s journey has also been about me. This particular inquiry has hit close to home, concerning both of the locations that have come to define me. All the questions lead back to where I’m standing. I followed the voices of the narrators and traced their footprints back to the beginning, back to Addis. Here, my aim has been to contend with my own complex and complicated place on the map or to simply ask what one narrator in the anthology asked herself, “Where do I fit in?”
As I reflect on my time here—now, half a year—I draw an awkward blank when people ask me about personal transformations, about the observed differences between here and there. If you’re someone from two places, people often need you to make comparisons, to speak hyperboles. In such moments, all I can think of is the obvious, surface details. When I’m in Ethiopia, for example, I don’t have the same freedom of movement as I have in the States. I also have less personal space, but a stronger sense of community and cultural inheritance. When I’m in the US, I have the luxury of being anonymous (albeit, to the degree best afforded in the age of Google), but I’m back to being a Black cog in a wheel of white capitalism, a single drop in a culture of individualism.
Though, if I’m to answer honestly, and with reflection, in response to the questions about my longing and belonging, the truth is that I’m never really in one place at all. There is always something missing. I attempt to be present, while mentally revisiting wherever I’m not. Clearly, my tenses are at odds. Though, perhaps, they are parallel or overlapping. Past and future. Here and now, there and then. Wherever I am, I am reminded that the only difference is me. In both places, Addis and DC, I am the only common denominator, the hyphen remaining in the middle.
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