written by Seare Farhat
My conversations with Audre Lorde have been numerous, healing, inspiring, and entirely in my head. She has described herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” and for me a voice of conflict and liberation. Lorde has defined liberation in her work as the rediscovery of the self and the reclamation of our past into the future. However universal her thoughts on liberation are, she is still adamant in centering herself in her discovery. When I first encountered her work, I did not understand the gravity of her subjectivity as revolutionary until I was required to question my own sense of the subjective. As a subjective artist situated in a context that did not value her personhood, she was distinctly aware that her silence and trepidation was a manifestation of her oppressor within her. The liberation of her art, and other oppressed artists, therefore became an urgent necessity for the community at large.
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