Gabrielle GoliathThere’s a river of birds in migration, (Personal Accounts), 2024
Filmed in Johannesburg (2023)
The title of this 4-channel cycle is taken from a liturgy scripted, composed and performed for the occasion by artist, activist and House of Diamonds mother, Treyvone Moo.
There’s a river of birds in migration
A nation of women with wings
A river of birds in migration
A nation of mothers who sing
Treyvone is joined by Maneo, Sapphire and Hopewell, who together share personal accounts of trans precarity and survival in Johannesburg, South Africa. In a crisis norm of anti-black, anti-femme, homophobic and transphobic violence, trauma is everyday and everywhere. Nevertheless, these personal accounts exceed the conditions of negation from which they are spoken, read and sung. Asserted alongside grief, disappointment, fears and losses are hope, creativity, beauty, community, poetry, desire, generosity, faith, transition, love and, perhaps most emphatically, presence.
