The project
Working title – 103 Folds
I began conceptualising 103 folds in late 2017/early 2018. At the time I wanted to create a collection completely separate from my practice as a spoken word artist because I believed I was limited by the rules of performance. I was also exploring intersectionality and inter-disciplinary practices.
103 Folds refers to a demonstration of exponential growth that states that if a single piece of paper was folded 103 times, it would span the length of the universe. Folding brings to mind compression and order which can be representative of oppression and containment or it can be an act of creation. I used this metaphor to pose a question to myself: Did my experiences and those of womxn, queer, and others on the periphery strengthen us, making us more resilient or did they over time compress us to make us less of ourselves, to have us take up less space?
During the residency, I used daily journaling practices to collect imagery and relied heavily on observation in a place where I didn’t speak the language but whose rhythms were so familiar to me. I hope this work will reflect this process and span a variety of forms and speak to personal and universal experience.
Biography
© Gloria Kiconco
Gloria Kiconco is a Ugandan poet, zine-maker, and non-fiction writer based in Kampala. Her essays are featured on Adda and as part of the interactive essay collection, undermyourskin. Her articles on African and afro-diasporan artists are online at PSP-Culture, and in print with Dazed magazine, The Wire, and Perform!
Gloria’s poetry is featured in the anthologies 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry; Dear Nev: An Anthology of East African Writers; and Wondering and Wandering of Hearts. Gloria’s self-published works include SOLD OUT (2016), RETURN TO SENDER (2018) and You Are Lost, You Are Here X (2020). Although her primary genre is poetry, Gloria’s work is intersectional and experiments across media, genre, and form.
