We conclude Rhizome's Praxis of Resistance series by welcoming an artist who has met the challenges of hypercreativity and resistance at a very high level. Join us for a special duolog and performance featuring Moor Mother with an opening set by Twin Jude.
A prolific voice in the Philadelphia arts community, Camae Defstar has digitally released more than a dozen EPs as Moor Mother and Moor Mother Goddess since 2012. Additionally, she has performed in the punk band, The Mighty Paradocs and is also the co-founder of Rockers! Philly, an event series and festival focused on marginalized artists. More recently, she has been an active member of Black Quantum Futurism Collective, a literary and artistic collaboration with Rasheedah Philips (The Afrofuturist Affair). ______________________________
Camae Defstar (Moor Mother): I played Boise, Idaho, one of the most racist places in the US, and I was going to just straight play a noise set. But I got on the mic and I told them the whole situation. All my thoughts. And they were like, “Whoa, thank you so much.” You know, in this place that I just didn’t expect to make an impact by just being me, was just incredible. And it surprised me how many kids of colour were in these spaces. What I find a lot is that kids are losing their identities, their historical identities. It’s what I’m feeling, and that’s what they’re telling me...It’s telling you they’re actively erasing your memory. So we have to do things to remember. I’m not saying hacking in the be-all-end-all or whatever, but something needs to happen. It’s like the Mandela Effect, I think that’s cute and all, but there’s something to that. Misinformation, misrepresentation of these people that have toiled for so long. Changing our streets, destroying our neighbourhoods, poisoning our kids with lead. All of these things are in cahoots, if you will...I’m part of a collective called Black Quantum Futurism and we do practical things like ‘thought experiments’. We have a community space right now that we call the Community Futures Lab. I’m reclaiming the word ‘experiment’, because that’s in the whole vocabulary of genocide, when we think about what’s been done to us.But in a sense of reclaiming that, and finding new ways to envision our future — definitely building off of Afrofuturism. Finding different ways to view time. Finding different ways to designing our own life, not according to what’s been laid down for us, and not according to what’s the indoctrinated into our psyche. Those are some of the things that I’m doing, but as far as me personally, I’m trying to create and live my own holistic practice, and I advise other folks of colour to do the same. You don’t have to graduate from some college or whatever just to try to listen to yourself and design your own path. There are no bounds. Ancient African philosophy says that there are unlimited possibilities. So we need to step into that and create the future that we want. Straight up. And believe that we have the agency and the power to do so.
