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Audre Lorde is a poet, novelist, activist, and mother of two.
She grew up in Harlem in the 1930s.
She's the author who coined a turn by lithography
in her seminal book Zami; A New Spelling Of My Name.
Audre Lorde defined biomythography
"as a literary form that blends elements
of autobiography, the novel, and personal mythology."
Lorde was a critic of second-wave feminism helmed
by white upper, middle-class leaders.
She believed that gender oppression is inseparable
from other forms of oppression.
She similarly advocated for a multi-dimensional view
of individual identity.
Lorde, asserted that communities too are built of differences
and that we should embrace the difference.
You need to begin with a movement, which
is what Black Power in the Civil Rights movement was.
Then immediately within it, you are
going to get those people whose differences are not being
articulated, which is right us.
So then there is immediately another step.
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Typically, the basic structure for an autobiography
is that you pick a story you want tell, devise
a quick timeline of events, divide events
into subsections or chapters, add events and details
to each section, conduct some contextual research,
think about where you want to begin, choose a writing style,
and then you begin writing.
A biomythography, weaves myth, history, and biography
in epic narrative.
Its job is to expand perceptions,
exposing more multi-faceted, dimensional and mutable
considerations of identity.
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Implementing biomythography as a studio practice
provides a challenge to critical historical practices.
We use multi-mediated and interdisciplinary platforms
to investigate historical facts, life experiences, pop culture,
and mythology; challenging, forming,
and informing our history, display, anthropology,
identity, and ritual, as well as personal universal and
institutional perspectives and histories.
Through developing a series of curatorial projects,
contextualizing the visual arts within biomythography,
Wimbley Christian work as context providers
for critical dialect.
Addressing the nuances within ever-shifting identities,
and how we experience and create our contemporary world
and culture.
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