My Nails Tell A Story:
A Multimodal Ethnographic Exploration of Expression, Identity, and Resistance in Brooklyn Nail Salons
My Nails Tell A Story (runtime 14:27), which premiered in Amsterdam, follows women from two Brooklyn nail salons. It uses poetic visuals to draw viewers into an intimate relationship with the fingernail, its artistry, and its racialized politics. Filmed in two Brooklyn nail salons, it reveals how manicures act as conduits for embodied storytelling while intersecting with race, care, and identity politics. The film invites us to reflect on the social role of the manicure, ultimately honoring this art form as a powerful and celebratory expression of self-care, community sovereignty, personhood, and resistance.
The film was screened for the first time on Nov 6 in Amsterdam at Visual Encounters. An ethnographic film screening and an exploratory version of the installation will be displayed at the 2024 AAA Annual Meeting in Tampa.
Zine:
My approach to zine-making is deeply influenced by Zora Neale Hurston’s commitment to blending using creative ethnography to challenge certain academic traditions. My zines are interactive and explore the genius of the Black imagination in everyday rituals and creative worldmaking that shape identity, care, and resistance. Hurston’s use of Black vernacular and her immersive, embodied fieldwork inspire how I combine text, photography, and digital art in my zines. I embrace personal narrative or autoethnography, poetry, and collage as ways to explore culture and self-making, much like she did through folklore and storytelling. Her refusal to separate theory and academic research from creativity encourages me to experiment with zines as an analytical and deeply expressive medium. I see zines as a space where scholarship and multi-modal storytelling can meet. This interdisciplinary approach allows me to expand the boundaries of visual ethnography.