SHARING. DOCUMENTING. PROCESSING.
© Jéssica Felício
DEAR NOAH.
28th January 2021
Words by Banji Chona. Photography by Jéssica Felício.
Storyteller and Zambezian Artchivist Banji Chona has gracefully accepted to write a letter for DEAR NOAH.
We were really proud for her to be part of this project due to her personal work as a digital artchivist but also her cosmopolitan background studying in Manchester and then Rome but also living in Zambia. Her unique point of view about 2020 is paramount to us. Her letter is really, truly a poem and reminds us that Black Lives should be celebrated and that above all, Black is yours.
22nd July 2020
Mwana ‘angu
13 Freedom Way
Terra Nova
25520
My child,
The world will seem a topsy turvy, when shifting back into gear.
Topsy turvy turbulence will rock, ebb and flow.
Fires will burn,
Smoke signals sending messages in clouds of Black.
Lives matter.
You ought to know my dear,
Ringing in the ears of many the sounds of a revolution.
Jupiter sings, Venus sings.
What Nina sang, Hugh trumpeted.
Deep down in the belly of the earth
They are drilling and digging for that shiny mighty evasive stone
Machines, conspiracy and chaos pirouetting beneath.
But they cannot tap a source unending.
Black is gold,
Is God.
Black is Earth.
Is Sky and Cosmos
But most importantly, mwana’angu
Black is yours.
Banji Chona is a digital artchiver, writer, sustainable designer and consultant. The entirety of her essence is intricately entwined with the unending roots of her multifaceted Southern African identity. Her work is centred largely around the socio-political and cultural promotion and preservation of the Southern African identity, narrative and aesthetic.
IG @banjichona
Jéssica Felício is a Angolan portrait photographer and a surrealism professional photoshop artist based. She loves taking self-portraits as they are for her the best way to express herself in her myriad of emotions.
IG @jekafe