How did you come of age as an artist? How did you come into your current practice?

Ha! I’m not sure if I have “come of age” as an artist. I think even identifying as an artist has been a difficult title for me to take on. I am slowly learning to accept, embrace, and affirm myself as poet. Poetry can come in so many forms, so many ways and waves. Triggers is a poem. A poem can also be a song, a dance, a color, a mood, a film, a person…

I think I have come to my current practice by way of heart ache and a longing to heal. Practice is a keyword, because if you’re doing it right it means play and exploration, but also comes with discipline and persistence. Discipline always feels punitive to me; my Aquarian mind runs from it. I have been learning to lean into it though, in my own way. What does it mean to come back to a thing? To work on a film and then watch it become something else, and then to watch it become something else again? I say watch, but really being an artist/poet requires an active and intentional relationship building process between self-internalized and self-externalized.

So, I come to my current practice with openness and a willingness to let go of everything I think I know, in order to learn and share all of the things I need to know—this is courage.

What was the inspiration for your Open TV project?

The resiliency of Black women and girls is my inspiration, it’s the only reason why I’m here. The fact of Black love is also what grounds me.

What's next for you or your project?

I’m writing my memoir entitled “A Body Made Home” and I’m preparing to submit Triggers to film festivals.

#SPOTLIGHT ON KAI GREEN