Artist Statement

There is a world between Detroit’s electronic funk and Nigeria’s traditional drum and I am of its lineage. As a native east-side Detroiter, my childhood memories were filled with moments of radio-side astonishment at songs like Geroge Kranz's "Din Da Da" and Underground Resistance's "Timeline,” while pounding Nigerian hand drums and cowbells carried me to school in the mornings. As a storyteller, who uses sound, performance and moving images, my work is an embodiment and integration of these energies.

From an early age, my desire to tell my own stories and create my own worlds has offered me tremendous relief from the grief of the classist and anti-black misogynoir I navigated on a daily basis. In my early adulthood, my practice of Nichiren Buddhism taught me to use my voice to build worlds in real time through the chanting of “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” (“I devote my life to the mystic law of cause and eect” as stated by the lotus sutra). Through this religion, I learned to make the immaterial, tangible through the sound of my voice. Over time, I began to long for a spiritual home that I felt an ancestral connection to. This longing helped me to discover Afro-surrealism, a “bluesy, kinky, spooky” artistic movement that dates back to the mystical and metaphorical African Surrealist movement in the 1920’s. Through deepening my study of Afro-surrealism I seek to create a healing and diasporic space in my music, films and performances that unfold a world where every part of myself and these myriad mediums can exist as a whole— free from shame, compartmentalization, or judgment. The work I create provides a safe space for me to connect with my fears, hopes and uncertainty through symbolism, repetition, my voice, dreamlike landscapes and sound.

My practice is to learn how to further articulate the possibility of whole humanity, through media, self-reflection, and community engagement. Inspired by the rich musical legacies of Detroit jazz, and atmospheric techno, as well as the harmonic incantations of traditional Nigerian music and Black women filmmakers. — I welcome full participation in our humanity and our ability to create our own worlds.

Biography

Kesiena Wanogho, aka KESSWA (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist from Detroit, MI. As a vocalist, producer, and filmmaker, her work integrates performance, video, music and spoken word to function as a resource for emotional healing. Her work with renowned musician Shigeto, “Is My Mind A Machine Gun?” (2021) premiered on the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit’s (MOCAD) new media platform Daily Rush and premiered as a performance art piece at Dlectricity's 2021 Festival. KESSWA is a 2022 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow, and has toured Germany as Musicboard Berlin and Detroit-Berlin Connection’s premier artist-in-residence. She has performed at Pop-Kultur Festival, Dlectricity and Haldern Pop Festival. She has also performed in support of avant-garde artists such as Esperanza Spalding, Sudan Archives, The Sun Ra Arkestra and Rashaad Newsome at institutions such as The Cleveland Museum of Art, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Most recently, she is featured as an artist and producer on Theo Parrish’s  DJ-Kick compilation to be released October 29, 2022.

CV