Bezel is the digital companion to my five published works: I Don't Like the Blues (2020), We Travel (2020), We Dance (2021), Ghosts of Segregation (2024), and We Travel (2026). Explore Capsules to learn more about the project, and Credits for a list of collaborators, media coverage, talks, and more.
Bezel is my digital portfolio. It gathers framing materials—work samples, photos, footage, and notes—around my five published works: I Don't Like the Blues (2020), We Travel (2020), We Dance (2021), Ghosts of Segregation (2024), and We Make (2026).
Keeping Time
I grew up watching my grandmother keep time. Behind the living room door, two sets of encyclopedias, church devotionals, and hymnals. In her bedroom drawer, obituaries. In notebooks beside the kitchen phone, the addresses of all our people who had left but sometimes made their way back for the reunion. In the front room with the green carpet, boxes and albums of photographs. She kept time in days too, to talk people on the phone, and to sit with folks, and to do for folks.
Vell (2023)
A collaboration with Mississippi photographer Justin Hardiman
Vell, a photo collection with photographer Justin Hardiman, pairs archival images of me and my grandmother with new portraits that bridge then and now. The project inaugurates The Vell Stacks, a digital archive of the photographs and documents she kept in her lifetime.
In my work, I keep time, especially of the daily practices of Black communities in the rural South. Culture, folklore, history, "placemaking" efforts. I work as an ethnographer, living among the people whose stories are my work. I work as an oral historian, sitting for on-the-record conversations with people, makers and witnesses of the culture and history of the region. And I work as a storyteller—through narrative writing and documentary—to share those stories in ways that reflect the concerns, perspectives, and lived experiences of the people.
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Explore other Capsules.
See Credits for information on collaborators, media coverage, and derivate works (e.g., essays, keynotes) related to Vell.
