Sarjé Haynes

Artist Statement

Here I sit, writing to you on a fancy brick of refined oil, cobalt, aluminum, and sand. A fancy brick made out of rare earth: the kind over which wars are fought. And I am trying to find some way to explain to you that What I Do Matters. 

Around the globe: more wars for more fancy bricks. (Never in USAmerica though. War’s only for the other countries, not here. Because we are exceptional. Unless we try to stop a pipeline. Or protect our water. Or protest peacefully.)

Never mind that all Earth is rare. Never mind that all life comes from Earth. That we walk around up here; rare and temporary. Acting like our only bones won’t be churned up with the passing of the tides, in the tilling of the soil.

It feels absurd to talk about my work in the midst of global ecological and socio-political collapse. But it is the nature of my work to talk about the collapse.

It is the nature of my work to reveal and attempt to heal intergenerational traumas within my being. On various scales, using a wide variety of traditional and found materials, I produce records of transient experiences and ancestral communications. The results are both excavations and maps. They are records of inner depths far more cavernous, more daunting, and more beautiful than could be contained in one imagination.

A lot of what I’m doing is trying to feel better in the midst of a world in crisis. To regulate my nervous system and liberate my body of as much distress and trauma as possible. To externalize as much as possible. To be available to serve the Greater Good.

I put my brain, my guts, my heart, and my soul into this art work. I heal with this art work. I record this life, one brushstroke and stitch at a time.

And in doing so: I change it.

I share this all with you, to invite you to delve a little deeper. Find the pain, and feel it. Find the wound, and heal it.

I can earnestly say, now, that What I Do Matters.

It matters to me.