This piece is accompanied by a poem titled “Tiny plants of matter.” Poem: you read my journal entry from my morning pages avoiding eye contact we slip into vulnerabilities. translucent in weight, it shines like slime putty, messy —efficient in attention. requires your focus to feudalize importance my weaknesses as old as algae, and as critical my stubbornest to survive and finding myself in adaptability the beauty of being strung along is that you predate recollection. fixated on a park bench, so familiar in its stagnancy i can’t help but be enamored by the neon glow of teamwork. cascading upstream, count all the instances that defy gravity. symbiosis, we meet again. the instant of time is echoed here time shared surviving, accomplish more for the atmosphere. the ecosystem. spending more time multiplying yourself so the future is more inhabitable because you're protected by self? observed. but in my discord i still see me in everything. self-mobilization. but in my world im surrounded by hallways and the clock is ticking to sense what’s directly behind closed doors. my tongue sharp as what defies gravity and crystallizes in space. i speak protection over my eyes. what i face, let growth be embedded within its spine my field of protection and reach is pointy, dangerous. tossed out during security checks too potent and against the rules but i still see me in everything that’s tossed away slightly present — i return to the instant with stories of tomorrow. advices as we all wait in line. when i sit on a park bench and asks of algae the wisdom of community, communication and clarity i just want to feel less alone in the today, while theres something confrontational about the next.

Fatou Ridgird

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Fatou Ridgird (b.1999, NJ) lives in New York and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2022 majoring in Fine Art. As a multidisciplinary artist, she explores the spiritualistic notion that everything is connected- challenging herself to make the seemingly mundane tangible. Through her Afro-Surrealist lens, she works across photography, installation, digital art, and painting to further the understanding of interconnectedness within her practice. At the heart of her work lies an exploration of the ever-evolving landscape of self-identity. Fatou works with photographs she’s taken that capture a “thing power,” which is a term coined by political theorist Jane Bennett who theorizes that all matter is pulsating with life. Bennett refers to inanimate objects with the term “thing power” lending significance to objects and how they can be alluring to others, which frequently goes beyond practical reasoning and is sometimes spiritual (Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things). With these photographs taken, Fatou makes “digital collages,” a term she coined to describe a collection of images derived from photography and splicing them into one composition all within the digital landscape. Going another step forward, she will paint a composition present within the digital collage constructed. By experimenting with this process Fatou engages in the storytelling of the multifaceted nature of the African diaspora. As an Afro-surrealist, this pattern of art-making embraces symbolism, identity, and digital culture through intensive layering and recalling of events. Her work has been shown in The Newark Museum of Art (group show, 2023), SLA Art Space (solo show, 2023), and the SVA Chelsea Gallery (group show, 2021-2022). Notable Awards include the School of Visual Arts Rhodes Family Award for Artistic Excellence (2022) and the Congressional Art Competition for Best Painting (2017). Fatou has been a recipient of the Newark Arts Renewal Grant (2022) and her work has been published in the special revival issue of HEADS Magazine by U.D.L.I Editions/NADA Maimi (2022) and published in Brownstone Cowboys Magazine New York (2024). She is signed to a talent agency known as No Agency New York since summer 2021.