Onions places the viewer in the moment when a writer struggles to construct an honest narrative about her struggle with “hiding or ignoring” her “blackness”. While simultaneously replicating the frustrations of being American and being black, when the world tries to erase the latter through the forced assimilation of the former, Natisse creates a moment in which the repression of her identity reaches a climax. The long, sustained pauses and frequent deletions mirror the frustration of trying to put repressed feelings into words but continuing to question “Can I say it? Should I say it?”.
See our interview with Kia Miakka Natisse here
:::
I am interested in the stories we tell, how we tell them, and the subsequent narrative shape that influences perception of the self and community. I create narratives using combinations of materials and media like video, MP3s, foil, cardboard and printed text to plunge the depths of my personal identity in exploration of generalities of the human experience. Through mixing media together, my goal is to alienate the familiar, familiarize the alien, and combine them both to oscillate understanding into dimensional form.
