Manifestations of YaYa

Hinkle/ Yaya introduces her concept of The Keepers and The Seekers in relationship to her residency at the 18th Street Art Center in Los Angeles in 2017. During her residency she worked on her long-term Kentifrica project. Kentifrica is contested geography that Hinkle/Yaya has been developing a research platform for since 2011. Hinkle/Yaya discusses why we hold on to the things we feel compelled to carry and pass down via memory, actions, and the objects that we hold on to. She contemplates larger questions concerning if something or someone can ever truly be erased. Hinkle/Yaya reads from Modern Poets Three: Your Family, Your Body that features the work of Malika Booker, Sharon Olds, and Warsan Shire 2017. She features two poems by Malika Booker: Brixton Market and How Our Bodies Did This Unfamilar Thing.

Host Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya discusses the theme of retrieval. From discussing how retrieval can be a way to combat erasure to examining hegemony and how it can rear its head during studio visits and within classroom learning experiences.  Hinkle/Yaya explores her retrieval methods and how they relate to what it means to be creative in the face of transgenerational trauma and erasure.  She discusses the difficulty of what it means to retrieve and the concerns of repatriation that she discovered while on her Fulbright to Lagos, Nigeria 2015-16.  She asks listeners to question what does it mean to emerge from erasure? What does it mean to learn new languages that have been extinguished from the land? What does it mean to embody the stories you want to tell and embody them as well?  Hinkle/Yaya also reads an excerpt from Ntozake Shange's theatre piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf (dubbed a “choreopoem” for its highly original combination of music, poetry, and dance) performed on Broadway in 1976-1977. The featured passage recites the lines for lady in green as she talks about a thief that walked away with all of her shit (stuff). During this selected passage  Shange paints a powerful portrait of theft in relationship to HIStory, colonialism, domestic abuse and so many other challenges that plague BIPOC womxn throughout various diasporas but with the main focus upon Black Womxn.  Hinkle/Yaya meditates on this passage as resistance and call for repatriation and retrieval of one's self in the midst of navigating the Historical Present.  

*This episode includes expletives. 

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Published: Feb. 08, 2021 @ 6PM Edit

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Host Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya discusses the theme of grieving. From discussing how grieving can be a way to access honoring the dead by aiming to live our lives more fully in the present and the difference between letting go of the past/the colonial violence within being told to forget the past.  Hinkle/Yaya explores her grieving methods of 2016 and how it relates to what it means to be creative in the face of massive loss of lives, separation from loved ones, and having dreams deferred.  She discusses the difficulty of what it means to be creative during this time of grieving and offers some catalyst for how we can channel that grief into actions that extend outside of the market of productivity during this time.  She asks listeners to do something that will allow them to thrive in the midst of death and destruction something that may seem like the most insignificant and mundane yet life-giving at the same time.  Hinkle/Yaya also reads an excerpt from James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, published by Dial Press in 1974. The featured passage discusses Fonny's interior turmoil as he tries to process being jailed for a crime that he did not commit while he has a baby on the way. During this selected passage  Baldwin paints a powerful portrait of Fonny trying to make a bust of his beloved fiancé Tish, but awakens within the belly of the prison industrial complex.  Hinkle/Yaya meditates on this passage and how it relates to mass incarceration, theft of time and life, and what it means to find a way to thrive in the face of massive injustice. 

Host Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya discusses the theme of fear. From discussing how fear can be a motivator or immobilizing to what it means to lean into one's fears and invite them to sit down for tea, Hinkle/Yaya explores what it means to use fear as a medium within and outside of the studio and creative practice. She also reads an excerpt from November 20th, 1978 from Jack Whitten's Notes From The Woodshed, published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers; Reprint edition (August 28, 2018). The featured passage discusses Jack manifesting his ideal painting collaboration and trying to lean into the unknown whilst confessing his fears of what that means. Hinkle/Yaya discusses the difficulty of what it means to lean into our fears amongst socio-political upheaval and she shares two favorite quotes concerning fear and permission from Bob Marley and Lucille Clifton.  She asks listeners to do something that scares the sh*t out of them in order to embrace fear and to allow it to be a catalyst to shake things up within their creativity.

Host Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya processes the Breonna Taylor news and discusses being in the midst of grieving, healing, and envisioning a new future amidst mercury in retrograde. From discussing the problematics with perception due to Liquitex's Portrait Pink to discussing Dennis Billops, a visually impaired activist who predicts the colors of her recent work, Hinkle/Yaya examines ways of seeing and unseeing. She also reads an excerpt from the second book of the Famished Road Trilogy, Songs of Enchantment by Ben Okri, published by Jonathan Cape Limited, 1993. The book features a passage that discusses the main character Azaro, living in the midst of political upheaval from the point of view of a mascarade that represents the Party of the Rich. Hinkle/Yaya discusses the difficulty of trying to envision the future in the midst of current events and the chaos that this moment in the historical present is collectively and individually showing us. She asks, "What is the legacy that you want to leave behind as a creative?"

Host Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya shares her feelings about the death of Chadwick Boseman and being haunted by Killmonger's last words in Black Panther. She discusses the legacy of the Middle Passage and how it relates to the current moment/movement that we are in. Hinkle/Yaya also reads an excerpt from Ghosts of the African Diaspora: Revisioning History, Memory and Identity by Joanne Chassot, Dartmouth Press 2018 that features a close viewing of J.M.W Turner's Slave Ship, 1840. Content Warning: Details within the close read of the painting are graphic.  

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya discusses how she engages with rituals of grief within the performance and social justice components of her practice, and how that engagement relates to current events concerning civil unrest and navigating The Historical Present. Archives as muse, sketchbook drawings, bibliomancy, and inspiration from Songs of Enchantment by Ben Okri are threads that run throughout this episode. (This episode does not contain explicit language however a few topics may not be suitable for younger ears.)

Welcome to the very first episode of Manifestations of Yaya hosted by Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle/Olomidara Yaya! This first episode introduces the intentions of the podcast to be a catalyst for creatives to activate and develop their own healing methodologies and discusses the power of using your intuition as a medium within your art practice and life.