Litmus
By: N/A Oparah
Runtime: 4.09 minutes
This piece is a consideration of black joy through the lens of what remains, what survives and what doesn’t—and the small, important signs that resilience and beauty are still happening.
The piece is recorded in situ. It is meant to sound layered—a part of something else. The song is looped, on repeat, with the static of life underneath to remind listeners that when stolen and stripped from its world, some presences, once free and joyous, can become robotic, corrupted, artificial, and thinned.
Ngozi “N/A” Oparah is a queer, first-generation Nigerian-American writer, artist, and researcher. Her debut novella, Thick Skin, was published by KERNPUNKT Press in April 2021. Her other work has appeared in Fictional International, Madwomen in the Attic, Five:2:One, ANMLY, A Velvet Giant (Best of the Net Nomination), Foglifter (where she is currently a prose editor), and other journals. N/A has received residencies in writing, art, and narrative media from Can Serrat in El Bruc, Spain and Proyecto Lingüistico Quetzalteco in Xela, Guatemala.
N/A is currently on tour as a performing artist in Satelliser: A dance for the gallery. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts and a B.S. in Neuroscience & Philosophy from Duke University and is represented by PJ Mark and Hafizah Geter of Janklow & Nesbit. She is the Director of Community Programs at StoryCenter, a digital storytelling non-profit in Berkeley, CA where she teaches short form memoir and visual storytelling. She is currently studying towards a PhD in Creative Arts and Design (R2) and investigating the role(s) of experimental and multimedia storytelling on mental health literacy.
Reclaiming The Narrative 