Keep Going My Nigga, or Don't

Marc Williams

“Why you ask so many damn questions?” These words were told to me by my grandmother when I was younger. From pure curiosity as a young child, to now a young adult, I am constantly questioning the world around me. Within the last few years, I have learned that through observing and listening, the questions will be answered themselves. Seeking answers to my questions though documenting my environment, whether a physical or cyber landscape. Keep Going My Nigga, or Don’t is an accurate experience of what occurs every day constantly, giving everything a chance for reflection and reaction. This work reflects that testament.

With photography, the viewer inherently has the choice to take as much time as they would like to investigate. The viewer is encouraged to reflect on the experiences of the artist and their own. In my life I question my identity, meaning of life, what I’ve learned thus far, and what I have yet to learn. After reflection, I’ve found that the questions have no end. The result of this contemplation has allowed me to find peace in my own uncertainty of self, and the world around me. Within this peace I weave together my observations. The culmination of these weavings are my reactions. A reaction being the conclusion, which could be an answer to myself and other viewers, or a new question to some.

The moving image is not only a reflection of my world, but also allows the opportunity to reframe that world, to emulate an experience of what I feel every day. This abstract and narrative approach includes all of my feelings towards the subjects displayed. The profoundness in a meme, of how a shared experience online translates to my own blackness, juxtaposed with my own captured physical documentation, is the literal complexity I find in my identity. The making of the video is to work through that discovery, and convey that same complexity to the viewer.

In Keep Going My Nigga, or Don’t a question may stem from the reflection thus creating a reaction. A reaction that could be defined as an identity crisis or even an existentialist crisis. While experiencing these crises in the world, I simply embrace them by continuing to look, live, and react as I know best—to the world I have been placed in.