Mimi Tempestt
Mimi Tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a MA in Literature from Mills College, and is currently a doctoral student in the Creative/Critical PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, the monumental misrememberings, is published with Co-Conspirator Press//The Feminist Center for Creative Work (2020). She was chosen as a finalist in the Creative Nonfiction Prize for Indiana Review in 2020, and is a creative fellow at The Ruby in San Francisco. She was selected for participation in the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices & writers in 2021. Her works can be found in Foglifter, Apogee Journal, Interim Poetics, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
https://spark.adobe.com/page/pPXmIBhFr2Fer/
Reoccurring patterns and shapes emerge in my forms. One is the cross, that for me symbolizes peace. The shape represents the crossroad figure who becomes the place of struggles for Africans in American because the binary construct demands one give up one’s cultural identity for the possibility of belonging. However, within Yoruba spiritual practice, the cross is God. The Kalunga, line establishes a threshold or boundary between the world of the living and the dead associated through bodies of water, like the Atlantic Ocean. Triangles are also embedded in my work. These 3 sides or 3 corresponding faces create multiple possibilities of existence through a prism, which gives me glimpses into sacred geometry, where I attempt to unify something broken, something lost. The metaphysics of my experience is exemplified by the art piece, “Grandson, Mureed, the Seeker” an ode to my grandson, who is the third generation with the same first name as He represents the tri-or trinity or completion. His life experiences have already indicated a shift in reality.
