NADA Curated by Fitsum Shebeshe

The creation of Cosset & Succor began as an exploration of themes of strength, protection, spiritual presence within womanhood, and femininity in the diaspora as a bystander to the experience. At first, it started with the thought of womanhood as a direct connection to a divine state of being, something I often observed and felt in my childhood through the presence of my grandmother and mother through the love and teachings they had passed onto me. As my life has progressed, divinity through self-love is something that has become more evident in my other relationships, platonic or romantic.

Cosset; to pamper or baby. Succor; to relief, aid, or help. One word; is slightly negative, and the other is not. One of them, I believe, is a necessary conduit needed to achieve radical self-love, and the other becomes easier to perform because of the self-actualization that is a result of said self-love.

There is a quote by 13th-century poet Rumi that goes, “I searched for God and found only myself I searched for myself and found only God.” With photography and collage theory, I try to depict an image of self-actualization and the space that is created through love and by love.