[2015] The Children of Yacub

According to The Nation of Islam, Yacub (Jacob, son of Isaac), was a brilliant eugenicist of African descent whose hubris and never ending curiosities led to the genetic invention of the white race over 6,000 years ago. This vibrant yet complicated narrative is only acknowledged by The Nation, and is discredited by Islam.

Disputed amongst the scientific community, race, as either a social construct or genetic signifier, has played an important role in modern history as well as justified ethical discrimination and even human experimentation. Yacub as a figure represents a culmination of religious histories, eugenics, and reactionary narratives that were constructed out of situations of American social oppression. The religious aspect of this narrative isn't necessarily as important as the social and scientific. According to The Nation of Islam, Yacub brought destruction onto his people by initiating research that would later be completed by his followers, the creation of The Devil Race.

This series presents surreal portraits of the fictive experiments and continues the narrative of their existence, regardless of the questionable science fiction that led to their creation.

[2017-2022] Necronoir

[2018-2022] Biochroma

[2024-2025] blackbody.radiation

Introduced in 1860 by German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff, a blackbody is a hypothetical physical body, or a collection of matter in three-dimensional space that has the ability to absorb all electromagnetic radiation regardless of frequency. While in thermodynamic equilibrium, these opaque bodies emit thermal electromagnetic radiation or blackbody radiation. As a series of photographic portraits, blackbody.radiation utilizes anthropomorphic portraiture to interrogate the forced relationship of radioactive material and Black (colonized) bodies.

In March of 1945 a cement construction worker named Ebb Cade, was involved in a car accident on his way to work at a construction site for The Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. While hospitalized for his injuries, Cade was singled out by Dr. Hymer Friedell, the deputy medical director of the Manhattan Engineer District, after being admitted to the local hospital. Described as a "well developed..well nourished" "colored male", Cade would become the first human plutonium test subject. Known as HP-12 (Human Product-12), Cade was injected with Plutonium-239, in order to observe plutonium migration through the human body. A few months later, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

As a geo-political superpower, America and its western allies exploited and continue to exploit the African continent, for its mineral rich resources. Uranium from Shinkolobwe Mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was used to synthesize the radioactive material that was utilized in the atomic weapons that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From WWII on, we have witnessed the continued exploitation and annihilation of peoples and communities for the sake of nuclear enrichment, capitalist agenda, and geopolitical dominance.

What if the remnants of those irradiated bodies were used to synthesize living biological reactors, capable of digesting radioactive material and harnessing electromagnetic radiation and nuclear fission?