point of origin

If I were a crystal, and a light shone through my center —the dispersed and refracted patterns of light would be the pieces that comprise point of origin.

Point of origin was conceived of as a way of talking back to the idea that every pain has a direct source. How do we trace the pain of generational trauma? Where is the bruise from the systemic oppression? Does the virus of anti-black violence show when you see my blood under a microscope?

Using a combination of de/re-constructing both literal and metaphysical fabric, patterns, fibres I make space and make present some of the realities of this complex existence.

Doing this work in a body that is completely episodic in its capacities posed a number of challenges and the process and product of this work was an experience of being broken open and then broken down into pieces.

I am a thing composed of variegated elements, hewn apart, and then sewn together over and over. Threads and echoes left by ancestors pulled through time and matter, drawn out through my complex body into the now and beyond. This is what I bring to my work. Chronic creativity and/for collective liberation.

—melannie gayle campbell