Let It Be Known That, As An Ancestor In Training, I Will Keep Loving
G L O W Z I, Let It Be Known That, As An Ancestor In Training, I Will Keep Loving, 2024, Audiovisual offering
Let It Be Known That, As an Ancestor in Training, I Will Keep Loving (2024) is an audiovisual offering lovingly weaved by Maiko Rodrig, Bea Scharf-Pierschala, and gloria-sherryl (G L O W Z I) françois. What first began as enraged tears propelled by deep despair became a poem, a heart-shaped afro polaroid, and finally, a four-minute-long audiovisual offering.
As the deepest forms of bigotry and violence have always made themselves shamelessly visible, I yearn(ed) to do the same by proudly proclaiming my desire and intent to keep on loving. How can I partake in efforts to ensure love remains in the air in times of heightened despair? How can I waltz with sadness and (ancestral) rage in a way that enables me to alchemize them into the most intentional, tender, and kind ways of holding fellow ancestors in training? What am I, as an oldest sibling, friend, co-conspirator, and neighbor, vowing to do when faced with the cruelties of the world? These are some of the many questions I warmly received in my lovely abode as this final offering was weaved.
Let It Be Known That, As an Ancestor in Training, I Will Keep Loving is a glowziesque manifesto, a grounding prayer, an invitation, and a promise from me to you as a fellow ancestor in training.
G L O W Z I (they/them), born gloria-sherryl françois, is an archivist and interdisciplinary artist whose work reaches through time and space. Born in Tiotià:ke/Mooniyang (Montreal) to Ayisyen immigrants, G L O W Z I has spent their life immersed in Ayiti’s diasporic culture, developing an imaginative language and archival practice—a space for multimedia explorations of kindred sounds, scenes, and textures.
An ancestor in training, the kinships and Black feminist ethos that shape their daily life are evident in all that they create. From art direction to painting, graphic design, vinyl mixing, and original music production, to witness G L O W Z I’s work is to be transported to a place of connection—finding yourself held by the lineage that holds them.