JHONA XAVIERA
they/she.
i am a multimedia chimæra.
i use poetry and prose, music, photography, video, and performance,
to tell stories that meditate on the multiplicities of my afro-latinx and trans experience.
i look to history, personal and collective, to ask questions about power.
i look to the present, here and there, to ask questions about empathy.
i look to the future, ours and theirs, to ask questions about desire.
these alchemical elements come together to form ritually activated altars
in honor of trans healing, black liberation, and indegenous sovereignty.
when the language we were given fails us,
i choose to build a visual poetic realm
purely out of these yearnings, skepticisms, and frustrations.
my path of transformation is one that
returns to ancestral ways of being.
as my guide, muse, and highest self,
i channel asyra:
the many-faced goddess of light you may only wish to worship.
portrait captured by christani pal, 2021.