"ARE WE NOT COWARDS" IS A VIDEO PROJECT I CREATED WHILE STAYING IN LOS ANGELES. I WROTE THE ACCOMPANYING POEM AS A REFLECTION ON IDENTITY, RACISM, SOCIAL CONTROL AND INDOCTRINATION.

THE VISUAL CONCEPT WAS INSPIRED BY KEHINDE WILEY'S “DOWN” SERIES.

books, movies, songs, biking, rollerblades, strangers talking at bus stops, old people telling you things you never asked about. i’ve always liked that. random people, random lives, random moments that stay with you for no reason. the world needs more of that. more stories. less news. less opinions. more art. less propaganda.

since the beginning of time, all around the world - they banned books, burned them, locked up freethinkers, broke old monuments, changed names, changed narratives. Instead of creating new stories, they rewrote the past ones.

but STILL stories survive. kids today still grow up hearing about One Thousand and One Nights more than a thousand years after it was first told, and The Little Mermaid nearly two centuries after it was written.

Stories live longer than the people trying to control them.