Chantal Gibson, …yet there is all this, 2021

In early 2021, I began writing with/holding (Caitlin Press, 2021), a collection of poetry about the representation of Blackness across digital media. Simulataneously I started working on a tapestry, hand-sewing, twisting, braiding black cotton thread into rubber mesh. Much of this work was done in isolation, sometimes silence, sometimes a YouTube talk in the background; however all of it was done in conversation with Black thinkers, writers, artists and scholars who have informed my work-life practice for over 20 years -- most notably Dionne Brand.

Inspired by A Map to the Door of No Return and “The Shape of Language” (2018), a conversation between Dionne Brand and artist Torkwase Dyson, “…yet there is all this” brings both of these projects together— recorded excerpts from the poem “Fanon’s Couch,” my interior and exterior worlds captured, specked with ums and dust, digitally stitched and woven into this remediated Black haptic map.