In All Directions
“In All Directions” is a film-poem created in response to Kai Cheng Thom’s keynote plenary “Choosing Love at the End of the World: Social Collapse, Conflict Resolution, and Queer Resilience” (delivered at CBRC’s Summit 2021). Key topics include: transformative justice and abolition, conflict and accountability, community and harm reduction. This film-poem is intended to embody key messages around the loving justice framework, including “conflict as an invitation to transform our worlds.”
The poem of “In All Directions” centers the starfish allegory – that two halves of a severed starfish can live on independently and grow entirely new arms, or re-merge to become whole once again. It focuses on the relational understandings of trauma, safety, and accountability. Specifically, the motif of arms is used to embody the methodology around engaging in loving justice – the reaching done towards self, others, and community.
The visuals of “In All Directions” center water due to its intimate connections with life and sustenance, depth and spaciousness, and touch as a relational sensory experience – in addition to being the starfish’s habitat. The movement and soundscape of the waves is intended to invoke a meditative, introspective quality key to engaging in this type of work. Additionally, the act of typing visually depicts a practice of intentionality in a literal way. The Notes app specifically highlights the importance of digital communication and phone use to different facets of pandemic, poor, and disabled living.
It is 3 minutes and 3 seconds in length. It features a looping clip of blue-green waves crashing against a formation of several rocks during a sunny, windy day. A prominent subject is the white crests, which form because of the waves breaking and scattering droplets and light in all directions.
On top of this loop appear a succession of cropped windows of a phone’s Notes app, depicting the artist typing out the poem (black sans serif font on white background with red blinking cursor). At times, other windows of various sizes and opacities appear that isolate and repeat individual parts of the poem as it is typed.
A document of the piece’s written copy is also available.
Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud
Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud is a nonbinary, mad and multiply disabled, digital media artist of Guyanese and English descent. Their creative work seeks to create breathing space for survivors and queer, disabled, racialized communities. Through film-poetry, they are interested in drawing connections between micro and macro levels of intimacy, interdependence, and care. Through illustration, they are dedicated to the explicit representation of diverse bodies – especially those that are 2SQTBIPoC, visibly disabled, adorned with cultural and religious garments, and of all sizes. As a whole, their art is part of an intentional practice to honour the body and all that it holds.
Most recently, Jasmine was selected as a featured storyteller in the public arts project, Dis/Play, created by Ophira Calof in partnership with the ReelAbilities Film Festival Toronto/Miles Nadal JCC – part of ArtWorxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021-2022. Jasmine was also a contributing illustrator for the 2S, trans, and nonbinary mental health affirmation colouring book “Tales of Our Truths” by Consent is Golden at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Jasmine is a graduate of X University's RTA School of Media and has been a local arts vendor and facilitator in Tkaronto since 2016.