An Artist’s Response
An Extended Q&A with Nnamdi Darlington, Panashe Mutasa, and Malaya Merriwether
By Marley Richmond, Jemma Keleher, and Sydni Rose
The past year has brought untold struggles, many of which have brought systemic inequities to the surface. In such difficult times, art offers the opportunity to reflect and mourn the loss but also the chance to spark action and change.
“The Wake” connected with three artists at the University of Minnesota who have used their art to capture identity, reflect on political and social issues, and engage in activism. In this extended version of our interviews with these students, Nnamdi dives deeper into his painting practices and how storytelling connects his work across media, Panache shares the way she has built an audience and her plans to start a photography club, and Malaya discusses the importance of supporting Black artists and businesses.
Nnamdi Darlington
Stage name: Endio
Instagram: @dio.mpls Twitter: @dio_mpls Website: diompls.com
Q: Tell me about what you’re studying.
A: When I started school here, I knew next to nothing about acting. It's actually funny ‘cause this school happened to be my very first audition, and I didn't want to go here. [I wanted] to get out. I'm a lot closer to home than I wanted to be, but it was for the best ‘cause I feel like I really needed to learn to love the place I grew up. And this got me to where I am and made me the person who I am today— both positive and negative—and so it's been a real journey.
Q: I want to ask you about your painting and how that came about.
A: When I started school here, I kind of quit painting almost cold turkey. I got into painting in early high school, and took a couple of art classes, and I really was painting a lot my senior year—I thought I was going to visual art school. But then I got here and took up literally all my time when I wasn't acting trying to be the next dude in the music game.
At that point, despite what people were telling me, I myself did not believe I had what it [took] to be a professional visual artist. A lot because I felt like what I was doing [was] very niche and also because you just don't see Black painters. Black artists are not represented.
I’d say that I neglected it. I pushed it in a corner of my life and checked up on it every once in a while, but didn't really engage with it until, I want to say about two summers ago. I started painting again and I started making my own cover art for songs and something started to… I would say click. The gears started turning.
Q: I want to ask you about your music now a little more in depth, if you want to talk about your recent EP or music in general and the role it's played in your life.
A: My art in general is stories and storytelling. Honestly, I found [music] connected all these aspects of myself and that I just love telling stories. There are so many ways to tell a story. These three things [music, painting, and acting] are the ones I gravitate towards the [most] and have affinity towards.
In terms of my music, everything I write with intention and everything I do is telling this grander narrative, this grander story, while at the same time you get to focus on a character and follow a character through their journey.
I write from a very real, very personal place. Even though the story is not necessarily Nnamdi, there's still truth in every line, every word.
This album [“Black Romantic EP”] is sort of really looking at myself and how the things, and the people around me, and the place that made me who I am, how it made me who I am.
This project really just made me a lot more aware about certainly what was going on around me, but also went up a notch as soon as the summer hit and George Floyd was murdered. That's what made the project urgent.
Because—forget the fact that I'm a Black artist and this is a Black story—I feel not only I need to tell [this experience], people need to hear it because this is my experience. Yes, it is not a singular life experience. We're not a monolith, we are not one thing that people prescribed. There's a whole lot of depth. There's a whole rainbow and array of shapes and colors and variations to each and every single Black life, but there's no way you could prescribe one sort of belief or one sort of perspective onto a Black body.
I wanted to make a project that could help to spark conversations, to help shift perspective even to just get people asking questions or to get closer to a place of understanding, ‘cause with understanding comes connection.
Q: I'm really glad you brought that up. I saw some of the clothing that you designed over the summer. I wanted to ask you about that and the inspiration behind it and your overall thoughts.
A: To put it in like the simplest way I, it really feels like such a tone and temperature shift. As soon as George Floyd was killed and all the protests broke out, it was literally a no turning back point like things were just full speed ahead.
Everything that happened in late May was the spark, the last straw, if you will, that I really needed in order to really get myself out into the community like I've been wanting to do. It's just tragic that it happened to be that sort of event that triggered that sort of rise out of the world. There's countless other artists across the country, possibly globe, that were triggered. That was the flipping of their switch in their brains that things can't be the same and we have to be moving differently, we have to be active in the streets, 'cause as artists we are the souls of society. We capture the perspectives; we capture moments, and we preserve them in a way that people interact with for centuries to come.
The best way I could contribute was to lend my talents in the most pure way that I can. I literally settled back in my Dinky apartment off of University and it was a cycle of wake-up, paint, paint, paint these shirts and maybe go to a protest in the afternoon or evening. To see the smiles of Brown people’s faces, like I was just going out there and handing these [shirts] out just like Goodwill. I was in high spirits 'cause I wasn't working, I literally didn't have anything to do but just create and activate the community and that was beautiful.
Q: My last question is kind of overarching. I want to know how creativity and being creative in all these different ways benefits you or doesn’t.
A: Great art is great art, and we know because it moves in whatever fashion it moves— this thing that forms constructive emotions in us and causes us to think different ways; it is imbued with an essence of a soul.
I even struggled to qualify myself as an artist. I guess I do music, yes I do theater, yes I write— I do all these things but I'm just creating because it’s the impulse in my soul to tell a story in whatever way possible. Especially within this past year, working on this project where I've had to psychoanalyze the past 21 years of my life and look at myself in the mirror, the positive, the negative, the dark, the light and all of that. It's a whole rollercoaster of emotion.
I'm very fortunate, very grateful for the abilities I have been given, but it's just how I live. I really don't see it as anything more that I can do, all I really know to do is the best of my ability. And so creativity has just been helping me tap into my soul and helping me find myself and actually truly recognize myself, and now that I know that it has given me an infinite amount of clarity in terms of how I want to, and how I can, move throughout the world tied together with being a Black man in America.
So, when I create from this perspective of a Black body in the white space, it is me communicating my experience, me trying to find my own identity, my own voice. In a nutshell, creativity is just like eyesight to me. It's just what I see all the time.
Panache Mutasa
Instagram: @panachephoto.co
Q: When did you start creating art?
A: As a kid, I never really fit in anywhere. I never really had a group. I didn't really enjoy sports, I tried a few instruments, and that didn't really go well for me. But then, sometime in 2015, I asked my parents for a camera just because we were going on vacation.
I started off as kind of like a landscape photographer, just kind of taking pictures of everything, everywhere I went on vacation, stuff like that. And then I eventually branched out into portraiture, which is what I mainly do right now. So I am a portrait and fashion photographer, but I also do weddings on the side.
I see photography as, number one, a means of self expression. And number two, a way of connecting with other people. Especially in a time like right now that we have the whole pandemic thing going on, photography, I found, is a really safe way to socially distance and have my mask on. So it's a really cool activity to engage in, especially in the time right now, and safely, of course.
Q: How did your editorial photoshoot come about, and was there anything specific that you wanted to capture?
A: For that one, I had had a 70s inspo on my mood board for a while. One of my followers on Instagram actually said, “Hey do you want to shoot sometime?” And I was like, “Sure.” I noticed her style kind of had a 70s vibe. I was like “hey she'd be like a really cool person to embody this concept.” And so we decided to set up a shoot.
Then one day I found this spot with a brick wall in Minneapolis, and the car just happened to be there. We didn't even plan that. I find that a lot of the time, the best shoots are unplanned. So there'll be something in the background or there will be lighting that's a certain way that was completely unplanned, and that's so cool.
Q: Is there anywhere specific where you seek out inspiration?
A: Sometimes my inspiration is location-based. So I'll just be driving around, you know, whether I'm on my way somewhere or just driving for a specific shoot. I'll find a spot with colors that I like and lighting and shadows that are really cool. And then sometimes I have theme-based inspo, so I'll be listening to a song and it's from the 80s and I just get like an 80s concept in my head, or, you know, just sensory things around me. I find that that's typically where I draw my inspiration from, just like environmental things.
Q: Do you find intersections between your art and social or political issues at all?
A: Minneapolis is a really diverse city. Because I'm based in Minneapolis, if you look at my Instagram page, you'll notice people have all kinds of different ethnicities, races, gender identities, and ages. I've always tried to make it a goal to not have a specific type of model, but to really make everyone, regardless of their identity, feel included in my body of work and to feel that they can be represented in my work.
Q: Have you sought out an audience for your artwork?
A: I actually pull my audience from a lot of different places. I joined a Facebook photography group chat—it's for local models and photographers in Minneapolis. Those are a really great way for photographers, no matter the experience level, to get connected with the community and to really just expand their networks.
I have also joined this Discord, it's a U of M photography discord and it's basically just for students who want to continue to meet people. That's how I've been recently going about seeking my audience for my artwork.
I'm actually in the process of starting a photography club here.There was one a few years ago but I don't think it's up and running anymore So, hopefully, you know, next semester if we're all on campus, I can kind of get that started and meet more photographers in person. I think that having one at the U of M will be so beneficial not only for me but for other people who share my craft.
Malaya Merriwether
Instagram: @malaya.merriwether, Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/artbymalayam
Q: Could you start by telling me a little bit about yourself?
A: Hi, my name is Malaya Merriwether and I am a sophomore studying Elementary Education. I attended Emory University the first semester of my freshman year but have since found my home at the University of Minnesota.
Q: What kind of art do you create, and what inspires you to create it? Are there any common themes across your pieces? Do you engage with social justice through your works?
A: I like to create art that sends a message regarding ongoing social justice issues. I am often inspired to create this type of art because as a Black woman and an activist, I find myself battling a lot of strong emotions related to these issues. Art is a way for me to express these emotions without words; it is the feelings that I experience concerning these topics that I really hope to convey through my art.
Q: What is the message you want to share with the world through your art? What’s your purpose?
A: The message I hope to convey through my art is a sort of “call to action.” I hope that when the buyers of my art put my pieces on their walls, they are constantly reminded of the issues that exist within our society and the battles that must continually be fought to achieve justice. It is very easy to become a complacent participant in the ongoing war for social justice when tragedies are no longer “trending.” I hope that my art serves as a reminder that the war is not won, and that we must fight for human rights every single day until they are granted to all.
Q: Who is the audience for your art? Who do you want your message to reach?
A: While my audience is social justice oriented and my art undeniably strikes a chord with those who experience similar oppression, it is not limited to marginalized communities. I want my art and my message to reach any ally who is hoping to achieve the same dreams and changes in the world that members of marginalized communities envision for themselves.
Q: What is it like for you to create pieces surrounding black collective trauma as a black person yourself? Does it have an effect on you?
A: At times, it is extremely difficult to create pieces surrounding Black collective trauma as a Black woman. It is heartbreaking to share the stories of Black men, women, and children who were robbed of their lives and who no longer hold the power to share their stories themselves. While the process is challenging, the outcome is empowering. More than that, the people who purchase my art empower me and give me hope that the world is seeking the same changes that I, and the Black community, are longing for.
Q: I’ve noted that you sell your art, and sold it specifically during Black History Month. Can you speak on the importance of buying from and supporting black artists?
A: While the representation of the Black artists has certainly increased somewhat in recent times, their work is still, all too often, overlooked. Through their art, Black creators establish sacred spaces for themselves within a workforce that was not truly ever built to benefit us. It is important that society not only acknowledge these spaces, but also the art that is made within them and the message that this art is meant to convey. No one can convey the pain, trauma, or anger that the Black community experiences better than Black people themselves. It is important that, in any way we can, we augment Black voices and allow the world to hear them.