Studio Visit: Camae Ayewa

Introduction by Nehad Khader

Photography by Rikkí Wright

Camae Ayewa in her studio.

Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother, is an artist best described as transcendent.

A musician, poet, sonic artist, storyteller, and one half of the interdisciplinary artist duo Black Quantum Futurism, she’s someone who can’t be pinned down by a single label.

Ayewa leans into the experimental, and that general ethos weaves through her style, sounds, and performances. She explores science, mathematics, future imaginaries, science fiction, and the past. She is a punk rocker, a jazz musician, and a rapper. Ayewa has something important to say, and she uses her creative talents deftly, communicating across mediums and to different audiences.

In September 2021 she released her latest album as Moor Mother, Black Encyclopedia of the Air, for which she identifies herself as both curator and conductor. The music videos, available on her website, represent a variety of aesthetics—from gritty CGI animation delivering punchy messages about gender and racial inequality to softer videos shot on pristine beaches. She is now working on collaborative records and her next solo album.

Together with Rasheedah Phillips (her other half in Black Quantum Futures), Ayewa also recently finished a short film, Write No History (2021), and the duo will be presenting work at documenta 15 in Kassel, Germany. Black Quantum Futures has also launched a new collective experiment called the Time Zone Generator on their website. Additionally, their project, Time Zone Protocols, which explores “local practices of time,” will take the shape of an exhibition and an “unconference” called Prime Meridian, presented by the Vera List Center in New York.

Between projects, we caught up with the prolific Ayewa at her new-ish studio in Los Angeles, where she relocated to from Philadelphia after accepting a position as assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She tells us a little about her space and gives us a peek into her creative process.

1. What’s the first step in your creative process? Where do you begin?

My first step is to sit down and plug in everything, then it’s time to go. From there I move through all my latest demos/projects.

2. If you had to describe your ideal creative space in three words, what three words would you choose?

Open, natural, light.

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Bio

Nehad Khader

Nehad Khader is a filmmaker, curator, editor and writer whose work in film informs her work as a historian and vice versa. Trained in media and literature by Black and Palestinian creators, Nehad is moved by art that carries aesthetic excellence as well as social and political significance. In 2009, just before attending grad school at Georgetown University, Nehad curated her first exhibit at the Philadelphia Folklore Project showcasing the works and oral histories of Palestinian women in Philadelphia. She went on to serve as Managing Editor of the academic peer-reviewed Journal of Palestine Studies in Washington, DC. During her time there, she took her first professional plunge into cinema as the founding curator of the DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival, founded by a group of fierce women in 2011. Nehad is a 2017 Leeway Transformation Award winner, a 2018 Tribeca Film Institute fellow, and a 2019 Logan Nonfiction Fellow. She also produced the short documentary White Fright, now streaming on The Guardian. After BlackStar Film Festival, Nehad spends the month of August field producing Scribe Video Center’s annual Street Movies! summer outdoor film screening series, hosted in various neighborhoods throughout the city. When she’s not watching films, Nehad loves reading fiction, singing, gardening, and enjoying her favorite city and hometown, Philadelphia.