dana washington-queen, Circular Metafictions

While working on Circular Metafictions, I began thinking about production in relation to my body and blackness, and how each informs the other. As the project took shape, I noticed how its unpredictable structure reflected the precarity of my life. Critical to this work is the introduction of Black Noetic theory, a decolonial methodology that brings intuition and experimental production strategies into dialogue with Black Feminist Thought, Black Aesthetics and Film Studies to negotiate with freedom and confinement. The word “noetic” comes from the Greek word noesis or noetiko, which can be understood as intuition, insight or direct knowing. Noetic can be described as gut feelings or insights that seem to come from nowhere. Granted, this type of knowing or sensibility is subjective; even without evidence, human beings have always encountered this type of body possession - whether creative instinct or ancestral.

I imagine Black Noetic theory as a practice of freedom, a kind of loophole. As a critical intervention against oppressive structures visible in film history, production and media representation. Black Noetic theory seeks to push against the boundaries of genre and production strategies, collapsing distinctions between documentary, cinema, video and performance, refusing conventional forms and simplified representations of blackness. Black Noetic theory is also concerned with transforming production and spectatorship. In practice, the methodology considers: (1) the body as a point of contention, (2) intuitive sensibilities, and (3) conscious production, in order to (4) think about the cinematic space as a site of possibility.

As an extension of the Black Radical Imagination^[1] traditions, Black Noetic theory is an intervention through and out of black life, interiority and artistic expression. The tradition can be described as a conscious / subconscious repositioning of oneself (or collective body) to reckon with debilitating structures caused by colonial history and modern systems of domination. In The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, Kevin Young posits that the black radical imagination is “remapping the world in your own image,” given that “the fabric of black life has often meant its very fabrication. Making a way out of no way and making it up as you go along” (17). In this work, Black Noetic theory disrupts colonial production methods by stretching literary form and employing intuitive and juxtaposed techniques in video editing.

Circular Metafictions: what remains unbound is gathered is a documentary that never could have been. A fractured shadow of itself, mirroring the ruptured lives of black folks in America. Despite its symbolic and material brokenness, the work declares a standpoint and a say-so for its being and becoming. It brings into question what it means to have a known maternal origin and what it means to intuitively know through ancestral connections. In an attempt to fill the gaps, I use historical fiction to build a trace that begins at the Trans-Atlantic slave route, which makes its way to Mississippi, where my maternal grandparents were raised: Charles C. Queen and Elvira “Bebe” Queen. The trace ends at a juncture between the spirit and physical world, after I find myself in communication with my grandmother’s spirit.

Circular Metafictions investigates three processes for conceptualizing the trace: (1) Origin, to reimagine and speculate what it means to have a known maternal origin; (2) Remembrance, to gather information about lineage and produce audio-video documents; and (3) Preservation, to engage with archival materials and construct a digital record. The project’s objective is not only to provide a resource in the study of ordinary black life, but for its contribution to the black archive.

With greater access to my maternal lineage, I explore an origin through historical fiction, connecting two female characters to the Henrietta Marie slave ship^[2] and their role in birthing the Queen family’s future. My creative production is often a result of some sort of encounter with a spiritual entity or experience, and based on my interpretation, video production mediates the intention, method, meaning and function. Lastly, by engaging with archives, ceremonies and crossing into interior spaces, I am able to construct and reauthorize history and memory.

I return to the Middle Passage to transform absence into discovery by engaging with the emotional landscape of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. “The Tale of the Circle of Spheres'' is a historical fiction origin story that extends the Middle Passage in order to draw a trace toward maternal ancestry. At least 30,000 voyages were made, transporting enslaved peoples from parts of Africa before disembarking throughout Europe, America and the Carribean Islands. As a point of departure, “The Tale of the Circle of Spheres” utilizes the Henrietta Marie slave ship as a historical marker and its site of wreckage near Key West, Florida.

In Seventeenth-Century Vehicle of the Middle Passage: Archaeological and Historical Investigations on the "Henrietta Marie” Shipwreck Site, archeologists David D. Moore and Corey Malcom suggest that the Henrietta Marie was a small slaver, presumably owned by a collective group. The earliest known reference of the ship appears in the 1697 will of crewman John Scorch of London, when the ship sailed from London to West Africa, disembarking in Barbados. On June 10, 1698, the will of crewman Peter Christopherson orally dictated the “hazards of the slave trade to slave ship crews,” but failed to account for the captive’s condition. Documentation confirmed that “188 enslaved Africans” were sold in July of 1689.

Less than a year later, the slave ship prepared for a second voyage to the West African coast with Captain John Taylor. The Henrietta Marie donned a new watch bell with its name engraved and dated: 1699. On May 18, 1700, records note that “190 slaves” (27) were brought into Jamaica under Captain Thomas Chamberlain, revealing that Captain Taylor had either died or left the ship. Records also provided that the ship set sail for London on June 25, 1700 with goods, but no enslaved persons aboard. Archeologists Moore and Malcom refer to a document “relating to the settling of the estate of Thomas Chamberlain of London, in November 1700, suggest[ing] some knowledge of the loss of the ship on its return voyage to London” (28). Although, there is little information for the exact cause of the wreck, speculation points to a deadly hurricane.

In the “Tale of the Circle of Spheres,” I write an alternative account of origin, death and birth in relation to this presumed hurricane. Instead of capture and death representing the end of life, I consider the afterlife of spirits (an extension of life) to imagine black existence otherwise (supernatural existence). In the process of writing the historical fiction, I referred to Saidiya Hartman’s critical fabulation, a writing methodology that considers the afterlife of slavery. Hartman works between historical research, photographic archives and narrative writing to attempt “to say that which resists being said.”^[3] Critical fabulation enacts an expanded mode of production that takes up the archive, writes with it and against it to address the absent histories of the enslaved. By bridging critical theory with the speculative, Hartman is aware that such an investigation is enclosed within the limits of national possibility for black people. More importantly, instead of breaking within the breaks, Hartman breaks even through a revisionist form of writing that provides a voice to those unaccounted for or annihilated.

Circular Metafictions features a spherical orb^[4] to represent a cosmology: The Circle of Spheres. The orb refers to the (1) circularity of time: the present being informed by the past and future; and the (2) continuity between worlds: spirit and physical. The orb can also be understood as a network and process that connects origins to endings and histories to futures. I am equally interested in how the orb functions as a sacred space where order is established; as a container for holding; as a continuous point of reference to history, memory and ancestral wisdom; as well as a cypher, where communication occurs, possesses and overlaps.

I commissioned artist Kimberly Heard to create a 2D animation that could encompass the passage of time of my maternal grandparents’ courtship, childbearing and migration. I often heard stories about my grandfather being instructed to leave Vicksburg, Mississippi after refusing to cross the street for white folks wanting to pass on a sidewalk. By the 1950’s, Charles and Elvira Queen migrated from the South and settled in South Central Los Angeles. Together, they founded Strait-Way Apostolic Church with their growing family.

My grandfather presided over Strait-Way Apostolic Church well into his eighties. This dedication was either a calling or barter with Elohim (transliterated^[5] Hebrew word for “God”). As a young man in Vicksburg, he was drafted into the army; however, not willing to die in a white man’s war, he prayed to get out alive. He promised that if his life was spared that he would dedicate it to the Lord. My grandfather was discharged.

In my youth, I watched my grandfather preach so fervently that the congregation reached trance state. I watched the Sounds of Holiness choir sing with so much energy that the congregation reached trance state. I watched my mother play the organ so gracefully that the congregation reached trance state. Religious trance state expression occurs when individuals surrender to God. During this surrender of the mind and body, the Holy Spirit is able to manifest itself within the individual. With this body possession, parishioners may receive the Holy Spirit through praise and worship, anointed prayer, water baptism, or glossolalia^[6].

Black Noetic theory refers to this type of conscious body possession. In a filmic context, imagine that you are watching a motion picture. Imagine that a portion of the motion picture becomes overtaken by a spontaneous spreading of white-orange and yellow light - this could potentially mean that an external light source has made contact with the celluloid film inside of the camera. Imagine that if this portion of the celluloid film is processed, digitized and edited into the motion picture sequence that you are watching. Perhaps, in experiencing this portion of the motion picture, you can perceive that the external light source interacting with celluloid film, becomes a phenomenon.

It is the layering of events that produces this experience: (1) original film sequence, (2) interruption of external light, (3) external light source overlaying the original film sequence. Since the original film sequence has been implicated by an external light source, then this portion of the motion picture becomes a conversation with and about the unexpected, or possession. It becomes a conversation about a union of two events: (a) what was happening first - original film sequence; and (b) what is happening now - external light source overlaying original film sequence. In terms of trance state: (a) consciousness - real time; and (b) secondary consciousness possessing the body - concurrently. In short, a doubling happens. An overlaying of sequences or consciousnesses. An abstracted dialogue with and between multiple spaces or bodies.

In the article, “Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The Implications of African-American Spirituality,” Dona RICHARDS discusses ethos and worldview, two fundamental concepts in the creation and maintenance of black cultural ties to African ancestries. Ethos “refers in part to the emotional substance of a cultural group, to its collective emotional tone” (249), meaning that ethos can be understood as a connection between groups and establishes an affective bond. RICHARDS uses the phrase “commonness of spirit” to symbolize a “uniqueness” between groups. Arguably, the term can mean, the spirit to survive or in other words, “making a way out of no way,” referring back to Kevin Young. Most black folks know what it means to struggle, to be knee-deep in it and somehow come out alive, to then, do it all over again. This spirit, this intangible thingness, can be understood as the “black interior” or “interiority,” a subjective, self-possession or an inner life “of its own making and conditioning.”^[7] Black people constantly find themselves at an unavoidable crossroads burdened by the collisions between human and object, freedom and social death, if not death itself. The precariousness of black life becomes the ethos that bonds other black folks together. In order to contend with this unfixedness, there must be some sort of intervention. A return to collective memory or intuitive knowledge.

The second concept, worldview, “refers to the way in which people make sense of their surroundings, make sense of life and of the universe” (250). A group’s worldview is a systematic way to create order—it is the reason why belief systems, ideologies, and practices exist. Concerning the black condition and unpredictability, if we can think about the black interiority as a kind of threshold space between black being (life) and black unbeing (death), then the systematic order should intervene by re-orienting the psychogeography of the black interiority. Such systematic orders can draw upon African or African-derived cosmologies that “pivot on the tension of black being and black unbeing.”^[8] This is what Valorie D. Thomas calls: diasporic vertigo.

This type of worldview system centers on the “fundamental effect of anti-blackness that is at the same time the condition of its healing and resistance, calling forth the balancing forces…to counter its destabilizing effects.” Amidst chaos, the interiority can transform the effects of anti-blackness by constructing “a social space where zones of resistance can be made habitable”^[9] (81). These spaces can be created from African and derived religious or spiritual practices, cultural observances, and other anti-colonial ideologies that transgress the narrative of fragmentation and dislocation.

During an ultrasound appointment, the technicians heard a faint second heartbeat in my mother’s womb: twins. That second heartbeat was mine and I was struggling to survive. My mother was put on bedrest and shortly after, an emergency cesarean surgery ushered our arrival. On Sunday, December 15, 1985 at 7:05 PM, I was delivered, and one-minute later, my sister came through. Our chance of surviving was 50-50, we were born three months premature.

For the project, I was interested in hearing our birth story from each parent to get their grasp on memory through trauma. Since both of my parents play piano, I sought to incorporate “Wade in the Water” along with the telling of our story. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, I was only able to record a draft of my mother, while my father filmed himself on an iPhone. This section of the film is still in progress.

“Wade in the Water” has various historical meanings and interpretations. Historically, it’s known as a freedom song about escape and safe passage. Biblically, it’s referenced as an allusion to a disturbance in the water. It’s also sung during church baptisms, when a person publicly professes their faith in God. Water baptism is symbolic of spiritual rebirth through total submersion in holy water. In order to bridge themes of disturbance and emergence, I asked my parents to play different versions of the song to signify conception and our arrival.

In some African tribes, the Ibeji (twins) are said to bring abundance, whereas others believe they are a burden and one or both may be sacrificed to relieve the family of hardship. It is also believed that the first-born twin is considered the youngest. This twin is sent out to see if the world is safe, and their cry communicates the result to the twin in the womb. The second-born twin is considered the eldest because they occupy the womb longest - their first home. It is said that the second-born is more careful and reflective, and upon hearing their sibling’s cry, they determine whether they will enter the world or not. This concept opposes the American view of birth order, being that the first-born twin is considered oldest, while the second-born twin is youngest. I’ve often wondered who would’ve been born first if there had not been any complications. I’ve wondered if babies can really choose to be born or not, and whether I wanted to come into the world.

Circular Metafictions uses documentary, cinema, video and performance as strategies to structure a document about the fragmentary. Art production is my system of order, being the act of remembrance to preserving cultural and generational continuity. Remembrance is described as a system for which to observe religious and/or spiritual ceremonial acts that reflect genealogy and region, history, memory, identity and sociality. Such practices request an examination of individual and communal lived experiences, which in turn, can shape its development, meaning and transmission. Within my process, research and production, a ceremony was held for the ancestors.

In “Remembering Otherwise: Civic Life and the Pedagogical Promise of Historical Memory,” Roger I. Simon maintains, remembrance as a “framework must make possible a sense of agency and futurity through forms of communication that enable learning about and from the lives of others and the consideration of the transformative actions necessary for living in a changing, increasingly interdependent society” (2). Black Noetic theory and other radical, decolonial traditions offer methodological and conceptual ways to think about the black condition and build languages around resistance and fugitive plans.

On July 21, 2019, I flew into Jackson, Mississippi. Excitement welled within me because I occupied my grandparent’s home state. Although I was unsettled by traveling alone, I was determined to explore as much as possible. However, all filming was determined by the safety of my physical body since I present as an andrygnous person. The South operates differently than Southern California in regard to gender and sexuality. There’s a different set of parameters around my body and movement, which put safety and survival into perspective.

According to Stuart Hall, the black body can be read as a text, just like images, sound and silence. Since the body can be read, then signifiers emerge regarding an individual’s rights and their identifications. Signifiers are how others make meaning of and about the body. With this in mind, reading the body becomes a kind of informational transaction about codes of conduct, norms and positionality. In essence, my body and movement communicated a language about blackness, queerness and marital status.

When the plane landed, I secured a rental car and drove to my Airbnb. That evening, I mentally prepped for the following day, the second-year anniversary of my grandfather’s passing. I planned to visit his childhood home in Vicksburg to build an altar with a candle, flowers and leave prayers. The next morning, I drove the 50-minutes to Vicksburg, and arrived at a home that looked different from the Google Maps screenshot my mother texted me. It was disappointing. I began to question if I was romanticizing this ceremony, expecting to have this grandiose experience.

I parked and pulled my camera out of the bag. A basketball court neighbors the home. I stepped on the court to ground myself. I took a deep breath and filmed the side of the house from the half-court line. I filmed the big tree shading the backside of the property. I smiled to keep from crying. With perfect timing, a bumble bee landed next to my tripod. I took a hard look and fumbled to turn on my camera. Some folks believe that bees are our ancestors, and I don’t believe in coincidences.

In my film UNDER BONE (2017), there’s a scene with red clock numbers that read: 10:16. I’ve come to learn that those numbers coincide with the date that my grandmother was admitted into the hospital due to complications with breast cancer. October 16, 1979, was the last time my grandparents had dinner together in their Los Angeles home. Since learning about the significance of the numbers, I’ve been very intentional about honoring my grandparents.

My grandmother died six years before I was born. My grandfather would always tell me how much I reminded him of her. For me, Bebe spiritually manifests herself through: 1016. Whenever the numbers appear, I can sense whether to be concerned or comforted. 1016 appeared most when my grandfather’s health was declining. I believe that she was waiting this whole time for her husband, and I just wanted to be useful whenever she made contact.

What I wasn’t expecting was for my grandmother to show up for me in the time of need. In August 2018, Bebe’s face appeared in the black of my eyelids. I opened them and her face was still clear. I watched my grandmother speak to me and I broke down into tears. This was the first time that I had heard her voice, a voice different from any of my aunts. Her voice filled my apartment and I was immersed in her sound. I felt safe.

My grandmother wanted me to remember my family. She let me know that everyone was safe. Bebe spoke in a kind of parable, about my body being a ship and that my family would keep me from sinking.

[1] Reimagine possibility in the impossible

[2] A small slave ship that sunk shortly after transporting slaves to Jamaica in 1700. Remains of the ship’s wreckage were discovered in the 1970s, artifacts are now displayed in gallery exhibitions.

[3] Bulley, Victoria Adukwei. “Interview with Saidiya Hartman.” The White Review, no. 26, 2019.

[4] 3D orb made by artist Richard Brown (AKA Irvin Brown, AKA AshTreJinkins)

[5] My grandfather studied Greek and Hebrew to better exegete scriptures. His sermons felt more like grammar school, less about emotions and more about education. He was one of few Black pastors in Los Angeles to speak the languages, offering classes at his bible college, Total Word Concept Institute.

[6] The phenomenon of speaking in other languages in religious worship; or the Holy Spirit giving someone the ability to speak in tongues; a divine speech.

[7] Jones, Ladi’Sasha. “A Grammar For Black Interior Art.” ARTS.BLACK, 2019.

[8] Thomas, Valorie D. “Unslaveable Rapture: Afrxfuturism and Diasporic Vertigo in Beyoncé’s Lemonade.” Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, no. 39, pp. 48-69. University of Toronto Press, 2018.

[9] Thomas, Valorie D. “‘1+1=3’ and Other Dilemmas: Reading Vertigo in ‘Invisible Man,’ ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts,’ and ‘Song of Solomon’.” African American Review, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 81-94. The John Hopkins University Press, 2003.