“To Be Black, Queer, and Buried” was a durational piece that I created to embody the black queer experience. Over several months I had researched and gathered different cases of hate crimes towards queer people of color, and ended up with over four thousand images, which I manually cut, to bury myself alive in. By doing this, my living body became a host to the deceased, and as a unit, I was able to breathe life back into this forgotten community.

Being a queer black man, originating from North Carolina, I was faced with the reality that my life was at stake, not just because of the color of my skin, but also my sexual orientation. Even within the queer community, there is ignorance towards queer people of color. This sparked the idea of burying myself alive with my community. I wanted to display the collection of myself and my community to the public. I am one face in a sea of many others who are neglected because of an identity that we cannot change.