Jhona Xaviera

Artist Statement

jhona xaviera considers their own positions within afro-caribbean history to celebrate and interrogate relationships of power between diasporic multitudes of queerness, transness, and religion. as a self-described multimedia chimæra, xaviera’s interwoven stories evolve through their use of poetry and prose, music, photography, video, and performance. these elements come together within installations that act as ritualistic altars that hope to embody ancestral reverence, revolutionary love, transformative justice, and future imaginings. this is all done through channeling Asyra, the many-faced goddess one may only wish to worship. 

Work Statement

asyra is the image of an ideal.  

so in this, she is free to be as you wish her to see, but it is in your own sight where you find betrayal. she is free to reject your desire and assume the form of her highest truth. does this make her a trickster? a temptress? a terror?  

there is not a single moment in which asyra made herself known to me. perhaps she is a lucid memory of the future i had as a child. perhaps she was in everything i could know and everything i have yet to find. perhaps, i am here, following and returning to the possibilities of what that might mean - questioning every answer’s fleeting futility.  

in this moment, i share with you a love letter i wrote to myself as inspired by her. its working titles are “asyra rising,” “you deserve a love as sure as the sun,” “the embodied and reawakened divine feminine principle as lived through the experience of a non-binary, trans-femme perspective on self-making and world building,” or “siri, how do i decolonize love?” no matter the name, the essence is the same. i invite you into this audio-visual realm of love, healing, remembrance, and warmth, as the manifestation of the creative harmony i have cultivated for myself in the midst of personal and collective trauma.  

i thank you for taking the time and space to explore this with me. i hope that this piece resonates for you in ways that may bring you closer to yourself and those around you. i am excited to share more with you soon and continue this exploration. this could not have been achieved without all of the love poured into me. i can only aspire to give it all back. 

ashé. 

Instagram: @jo.asxv