I started reading this book, hardback, a few years ago from the university library. It got recalled before I could finish it.
I was reading it after reading about how for decades the remains of two MOVE children had been kept at Penn Museum and later Princeton University illegally.
How they were using these children’s remains ( bones) in an online course for demonstration purposes as if they were nothing. Just fine specimens to illustrate a scientific point and not actually once being human and that their family was still alive and none the wiser. They thought they’d buried their children after they were bombs but piece of them were missing. And this wasn’t a mistake or oversight, the family had been lead to believe that all remains had been released to them to lay their children to rest.
I took an interest in this case along with the fascination of bone collecting/ salvaging/ pillaging to study and use as evidence of race hierarchies.
I even started a creative hybrid piece around it all as a means of trying to understand it as well as shed light in the continued extraction and exploitation of black bodies even beyond death.
the zine that documents the zines I want to create moving forward into 2026
I’ve just been over on my Patreon page sharing about the first zine of the year. Do you want to know what I shared about it?
Okay, I’ll tell yo here too!
A few years ago, I gave myself the challenge of creating a zine a month. Check back using the ‘zine’ tags and no doubt you’ll find them, still there ready to download and peruse.
This year, I vaguely set myself this challenge again, to create a zine a month and share it here. I think. As I’m still in the process of committing. But last night, at a Zinester Sanctuary that I’m creating witha fellow fugitive, I had the time to create my first zine of the year. See the video above.
I looked back at one of my zines from my first challenge, this was a zine about the zines I wanted to create. I looked back to see if this list of zines with illustrations were still zines I wanted to create.
After this reflection, I then set forth to create the zine that hopefully is the blueprint for 2026 creations.
In the video what you are seeing is the front cover stating that ‘Abolition is a Global Struggle’ with FREE PALESTINE but also the caveat that this has to be completed ‘with patience and care’.
The next page with a wheel of a VW Campervan and the text ‘ like a bird flying into’, is a nod towards my love of nature and how she will always appear in my zine creating, some way or another.
The next double spread with an image of two little girls standing on the beach, myself and my estranged sister and the text reads, ‘me in all my fucked up glory’. This signifies the task of creating perzines, using the format to explore my life stories.
On the green page with a roughly drawn book in black pencil refers to my desire to dive deep into my black studies, studying blackness as fugitivity, fugitive spaces. ‘You will find comfort in blackness’ the text reads to accompany this intention.
The next page is a quote from Octavia E Butler, from Parable of the Sower which states, ‘All that you touch you change, all that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change.’ This was a small print I received from a printmaker friend called Theresa Easton.
The second double spread, because I hadn’t finished yet with my intentions (so who says you can’t add in another page?) is a recognition of my word of the year which is AFROSURREAL. I’ll be exploring what this means further throughout the year here and on my website.
This is partnered with a splash of purple/ mauve as the text reads, ‘ in mauve there is a quiet power.’ This is a reminder for myself to use my zines to share my poetry. My voice is my power. This was how I started making small zines, booklets before my first collection of poetry, Family Album was published. Because I was reading at all these gigs and people would come up afterwards and say where can I buy your work and I had no where to point them to. So I got creative and created these little zines , one dedicated to the poems I’d written about my daddy and one other dedicated to my mummy, and sold them for £1 each. I’d forgotten about them until I just wrote about them here now. Don’ you just love the creative process?
And then moving towards the end of this first zine of 2026, which apparently has been announced as the year of the zine – 2026, we’ll see what happens there as zines could become if not already commercialised and co-opted and become unrecognisable from their origins ( which I’ll be exploring and sharing further about here), there is a polaroid photo of myself smiling. This was taken last year at a Outdoor Citizen gathering, and these were taken to put on the wall with details about ourselves so we could be putting names to face,s be recognised within the crowds. This image is here with the title ‘fugitive sista’ as a reminder of who I {BE} but also who I {BE}coming through my continuing thoughts and praxis around fugitivity.
The final page with the outline of a goddess in black pencil and spiral within her gut/ womb and the text, ‘ Today I will praise. I will praise The Black Woman.’ Today ,tomorrow and always, I will praise the Black Woman. I support this praise with my continuing reading and practicing of Black Feminist thought and praxis. This is my foundation always.
The back cover ends with another sticker and this time it states, ‘ From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Again reminding myself that I do this work, explore my creativity and share whatever comes up within a constantly changing context of struggles, struggles for liberation, peace, justice, self-determination and love.
2026, the year of the zines. Let’s make it the year of the zines that give voice to the struggles near and far , struggles for liberation, peace, justice, self-determination and love.
Walking into North Shields the other day, walking towards the Fish Quay where there is now accessible access connecting the centre of town down to the River Tyne, I caught sight of this sculpture of Mary Ann Macham.
I first learned about Mary Ann in 2007, when I was researching the North-East’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade to mark the bicentenary of its abolition.
I was writer in residence within the Literary and Philosophical society, researching their tracts and unearthing the names and lives of the once enslaved people who passed through and/or settled here.
I wrote a poem about Mary Ann, her escape and travel up to the North, and with the help of the Quakers, made a life for herself through working in service and getting married and living in North Shields. This was back in 1831 when she arrived here and lived for a further 60+ years as a free woman.
An aside here is how the Quakers at the forefront of the abolition movement here in the North- East, were against the slave trade and worked for the abolition but still held the racist beliefs of the day that white people were still superior to black people.
Mary Ann Macham told her story to a member of the Spence family, who she was in service to. There’s a lot that can be argued about the practice of black people, telling their stories to white people who wrote them down and how accurate these are as a true representation of their stories. But this is all we have now as ‘evidence’.
African Lives in Northern England completed research on Mary Ann Macham before this public statue and the local groups ‘found’ her.
I should be grateful and overjoyed that finally Mary Ann Macham is being remembered. That there is a public statue dedicated to her and that she is being reclaimed as part of the local community.
But something just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe I’m being far too critical. Or maybe I’m just coming at it from a black woman’s point of view living within white supremacy culture?
The press releases for this unveiling of the statue in November 2025, proceed to paint the impression that Mary Ann Macham has just been discovered. That this was hidden history that the locals have just uncovered and became fascinated with and had to find out more about. But unknown to whom?
If they had done their research they would have seen and also acknowledged the work completed in the past to shine a light on Mary Ann. But the story goes that they have just discovered her story. Or decided to just focused on only part of her story/life? Mary Ann Macham ( later Blyth through marriage lived until she was 92 years old).
The local Sculptor Keith Barratt who created the piece has said to the local media that he wanted this sculpture to show that “she came from a place of great pain, but it’s also a story of human liberation, of breaking the chains and I feel that this is something universal that many people will understand”.
I suppose I have issue with how Mary Ann is framed within the story of her own life, which she doesn’t have control over maybe a bit then but definitely not now with how she is remembered.
I Love North Shields has more details about her life and attempts to create a bigger picture of her life before enslavement and after as a free woman living her life here in the north east. But frequently it has to be argued, the majority of time, Mary Ann is trapped within the ‘slave’ narrative perpetuated by white people. Although seeing her as ‘brave’ for plotting her escape, they still frame Mary Ann, tell her story within the role of once enslaved, and needing the help and support of kind Quakers. Sounds a lot like white saviorism. Then and now.
It’s almost like Mary Ann is stuck, encased in bronze, and barefoot to symbolise the condition of slavery. Enslavement she escaped from physically during her life, but trapped forever within this role in memorial because the white imagination cannot see/ grant Mary Ann her full humanity . The fullness of her life.
Time and time again, the mainstream constructs the stories they want to shed a light on and tell about people of the global majority which suits the narratives they’ve been running for centuries. The narratives where we don’t have agency or self-definition but are the objects, less than and victims. This is a means of control and domination.
This is why it’s important that we take every opportunity to tell our own stories. To control our own narratives. To leave these as archives for the people that come after we so they can be in no doubt that we lived big, beautiful, full lives on our own terms.
And is it me, or does the statue of Mary Ann Macham make her look like she’s white?
With it being awards season and all, I felt called to watch Sinners again. This might have been my fifth or sixth time. I’m sorry, I’ve lost count. It still hasn’t lost its magic. The film just keeps on giving for me. To me.
This time, I’m struck by how many times freedom is mentioned. How to get free? How to be free? How to protect that freedom?
I think Sinners explores the price of freedom. The price of being free. There’s always a cost for attempting to live life on your own terms.
From the beginning, we might be introduced to sharecroppers, working for the white men, still on plantations. But this will be a self-sustaining community. More than bodies for working on the farms, the land they do not own. But they have each other. Each character is developed at the beginning of the film. The viewer is allowed to get to know them and see them in their element. They be vibrant and they be fixing to be free. Free from the restrictions of white supremacy culture, capitalism, patriarchy the whole shebang. And this isn’t without pain but also joy and laugher and love.
Sinners is what happens when a community, when people are living their own lives and are infiltrated by others, who want what they have. Outside threats come to ruin the day. Vampires come and covet what this community has. Sammie. Sammie has a gift, the gift of music that connects him with all ages. Griot.
Delta Slim’s says, “With this here ritual, we heal our people. And we be free.” This is the power of music and how a community can tell their stories through music. And outside forces, in this case vampires, who hear, see, realise this power, are threatened by it as well as want it. Want to control it take it away from this black community who are gain strength and sustainance through it all. And be free.
Sammie’s gift, the music, the very culture needs to be/ has to be protected from these outside threats at all costs. As culture, its very existence is threatened from being sucked dry by the devils coming tonight.
So as a people, as black people, we do whatever we can do to tell our own stories, protect and preserve our music, our culture as through this we heal. And we be free.
If you’ve been watching the news this week, you’ve seen that it’s been dominated by what is happening in America. Or the actions America has taken elsewhere in the world. Flexing their muscles, going in for the strike.
In my opinion, what is happening, right now, is that white people can see the power of the state being used against people who look just like them.
This is where AfroSurrealism takes on significance – because the reality of blackness is the power of the state is always and, repeated for centuries and generations, been used against black people. Being black is a surreal experience. THEN. RIGHT NOW. ALWAYS.
The abuse of power has been turned up to the max so that no one is safe. But some people can’t see this yet. Maybe even deny it, spin a false narrative around it.
There’s a quote somewhere that I remember which goes something along the lines as, they’ll come for me in the evening, but then they’ll come for you in the morning.
Fascism had raised its head once again. But did it ever go away for black and brown bodies? Did it not just change its mask, switched up its playbook?
There’s protests across American cities against the unlawful killing of a white woman/ mother by an ICE agent. These protesters scream out, “say her name.”
The thing is this – no disrespect or condoning of this violence or unlawful killing as it is an abuse of power and murder. I am outraged but …
I am also outraged because #SayHerName was an awareness campaign started by Kimberle Crenshaw to bring attention to the unlawful killings of black women by law enforcement that were going unreported/ not getting the same level of outrage and attention as when black men and boys are killed by law enforcement, in comparison. And this doesn’t even start into the ‘white woman syndrome.’
#SayHerName was needed to highlight and remember and get justice (?) for black women who have been killed in custody, or when calling 911 for help, or when sleeping in their beds, or for just breathing while black.
#SayHerName is needed for these unlawful killings of black women not for the white woman killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday because everybody knows her name and everybody is saying her name.
What happened in Minneapolis was wrong and the Trump administration is lying about it and blaming the victim. This is an abuse of power and is being played out, as the images of the bloodied seat and the bullet hole in the windshield, as a threat.
You get in the way of us, protest our regime then this is what happens to you, is the message. They rule with fear, threats and intimidation. The ICE agent is immune from prosecution because he was just doing his job. His job for the state. Above the law. Lawlessness is the state. This is the only way to get the mass of population behind a fascist society. Fear, threats and intimidation.
Check the historical playbook.
The reality though, the truth that has to be stated otherwise I’d be silenced through fear and intimidation, is that #SayHerNane centred black women, centred blackness. But using it here in this instance for the murder of a white woman, this is just another thing that is whitewashed and co-opted by white people.
I’m thinking this and berating myself for thinking this. Condemning myself for seeing this play out in reality. I had to go online and check myself. Check that I’m not being unreasonable, or hateful or wrong. But I’m not alone in seeing this reality.
This truth.
( And do you also notice how much and often I’m couching my opinion in diplomatic ways, highlighting my intentions not to cause harm. Obviously needed as far too often people choose to see only part of the argument. Take issue with what isn’t the real issue as a means of not listening and not addressing the real issue! Kill the messenger and all that!)
I also have to ask ( myself, anybody else) if the woman who was killed by ICE was black or brown would there be such media attention, protests, calls for justice? Would her unlawful killing/ murder be used as a touchstone, as a moment that changes American history moving forward? Or would that be another case of #SayHerName?
I say this not to distract from the horrendous crime that has been committed by the state against a white woman. I say this because it’s all part of the same system that has been operating for centuries and it is just now, in this moment, that more people, white people are seeing that this shit is killing them too. It has been all along but just slower than black people (Fred Moten).
These are strange times (white) people are arguing. Democracy is being eroded. Violence is no longer buried and concealed. Violence is (now) at their (white) doors.
AfroSurreal. This has always been the reality of blackness. The violence. The absurdity of it all. No rhyme or reason except profits and power.
Now white people are waking up to seeing on their feeds people who look like them being murdered by the state. Unlawfully murdered by the state for demanding justice and fairness.
It’s awful that some (white) people are just starting to experience the dangers of oppression right now.
This is nothing new for / to black people. And saying this isn’t to wish ill will on anyone else or to take glee or satisfaction in violence inflicted on anybody.
Yesterday, I was on here cheering myself along. Congratulating myself on a job well done, showing up here for 350 days last year. Stretching my creative muscles. In public.
All those posts are still here. I’m creating an archive of things and stuff that tickled my fancy over the years. Stuff that made me stop and think but more so feel.
If you’ve been here this year, last year or the all the years before that and something here has tickled your fancy. Something here has landed with you, made you think, or even better made you feel than please consider buying me a coffee.
Coffee culture for me is getting a good table in the local coffee shop, ordering an extra hot oat vanilla latte, settling in for some visual journaling as well as some people watching or eaves dropping.
I’m part of society but not. I’m in amongst it but detached. The perfect position from which to create.
So far this year, I’ve been out for one coffee after my little hotel stay, and I started my next essay. Out in public, in the noise and bustle, there are pockets of retreat where ideas can percolate and take shape. I always enjoy a coffee writing outing as I’m never sure what will come to the page.
Thank you. Your support of my creativity is most appreciated.
If you’ve been around here for a few years then you’ll know that I choose a word each year to act as a guiding source for the year ahead.
I hold this word lightly as a beacon to support my movement through the year as I navigate through society, this world, with the ebb and flow of commitments, responsibilities, projects and inspirations.
Last year, fugitivity took hold of me and kept me refusing those things that have already been refused of me throughout the year.
Fugitivity and visual journaling went hand in hand in 2025 to the point that I was able to create a loophole of retreat, a space of freedom and play for most of 2025. No doubt fugitivity is changing my life and remains in my rucksack as I traverse into 2026. The year of the horse ( more on that later).
So what is my word of 2026?
Usually I have something chosen at the back end of Oct moving into November. It just comes to me, lands and takes up root as something that just feels right. And something I want to carry for a year or more and explore.
That didn’t happen this year.
I had the feeling of being ‘unapologetic’ to the max but that felt, as a word, so dated. I feel it has been co-opted by mainstream and capitalist culture that to hear it now feel so twee for me. It’s original radical power being neutered.
Then we had radicale ( with an ‘e’) meaning to get to the basic root of something. Its natural origin. It’s fundamental and essential, changing from the roots. As well as radical being judged as unconventional, pushing things to the limits.
But again this word didn’t sit well within my gut. I wasn’t feeling it.
For me my word of the year has to be embrewed with feelings as well as be able to stand the test of time, the year and beyond, as well as act as talisman, inspiration and haven. Words of the past has included voice, water, shakti, open, listen, love etc.
I have a tall ask for my word of the year but none of my words of the year so far has let me down. I suppose it’s a difficult act to follow after fugitivity as this practice has changed my life in so many ways.
But choose a word of the year I will because after so long in this practice, I would feel naked walking into 2026 without some word(s) at my back as support and/both motivator.
I’m making the commitment here now to go with – AfroSurreal – as my words of 2026.
Of course AfroSurreal is much more than a word it’s a whole artist and literary movement which blends the weird and absurd with the reality of blackness. That the reality of blackness, being black today is surreal.
AfroSurreal is also a way of {BEING} that roots me further into the RIGHT NOW. Creating the future that has to happen right now.
I’ll be exploring more and sharing about AfroSurreal over the next couple of days to get my basis understanding and direction down. And then look out for more posts about how I’m moving and shaking with AfroSurreal(ism) for the coming year.
I’m excited to see where this word will take me. A good sign if any that I’m chosen the right word ( movement) for 2026.
I spend so much time and energy on the work I share at Sunderland University, one or two sessions, out of their social work studies that I’ve decided the share what I create over on my Patreon in a special collection.
It’s just the power points for now. I’ll go back in at some point and share the resources as well. But I just thought it might be of some use for someone else. I’m not expert either. And my style and message has changed over the six years of doing it. I’m mighty please withy last one, November 2025, because I just centred blackness all the way. I was unapologetic and intend to stay this way.
Living Wild Studios 