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Khadija Jahmila

Multimedia, Visual / Media

As a collage artist, I preserve, recontextualize, and assemble surrealist visuals with hand-cut analog and digital means to honor the lives and legacies of Black people. Images of African Diasporic folks are spliced together with other found visuals like machines, plants, animals, and inanimate objects; negative space or maximalism punctuate each composition. Deconstructing existing imagery from found and sustainably-sourced materials is a means to critique the contemporary culture of othering and dehumanization. In my practice, I reclaim and re-write personal and ancestral stories while naming, describing, and subverting xenophobia, institutionalized and systemic oppression. With Afro-futuristic themes, I re-imagine the lived experiences of Black people to honor our identities, acts of self-preservation, humanity; beauty; intersectionality; and otherworldliness.

About the Artist

Khadija Jahmila (b.1993, Maryland) is an Afro-Caribbean visual artist, creative entrepreneur, and thrift hunter. She is best known for her surreal and futuristic original collage artworks including her popular “Back to Love, Back to Cosmology” zodiac series. Specializing in cut-paper and digital collage, Khadija creates cosmic worlds that explore Afrofuturism and celebrate the otherworldliness of the African diaspora. 

Khadija Jahmila website KhadijaJahmila.com

Featured Work

Photos

Ceremony, COVID-related chaos and fury. Situated from the inside of a deserted vehicle, the rearview reveals the fiery demise of police and state-sanctioned, anti-Black violence. The sun sets over a wrecking yard occupied by Black femmes who dare cultivate a culture of resistance, rest, and rejuvenation as means of self-preservation.
Khadija Jahmila’s Black Ice collage remixes a snowy Yosemite calendar scene with the addition of a statuesque, cross-legged woman assuming the role of mountain. Hand-cut paper archers and planet Jupiter are positioned in the scene as her guardians, paying respects to her highly revered landform. The tree in the background leans closer to bask in her aura. At the bottom right of the composition, a sparkly glove turns a few pages to catalyze and welcome the coming of a new season.
Yesterday I Remembered the Hummingbird was created in response to the prompt “overgrown” and illustrates an interstellar portal into a sanctuary of tranquility and ease of mind. A pristine emerald crystal looms at the center of the collage; around it, three sanctuary dwellers form a triangle. Poolside, a headless humanoid rests and recharges, feet dangling in the water. Jahmila’s use of green clippings emphasizes the richness and abundance of life, continuity, and an ever-evolving purpose. The title of the composition is a line from Be Steadwell’s musical, A Letter to My Ex, Jahmila was a cast member.
Inspired by the word ‘build’, Headspace is a hand-cut paper collage representation of what it means to think and dream abundantly. A figure with brown skin sits in a hunched position; the frequency of flesh-toned roses safeguard her delicate structure. A view of Saturn can be seen inside a farmhouse window, replacing a conventional head.
Just Look Over Your Shoulder was created as part of a one-word-prompt art challenge. The word “enchanted” inspired the selection of each cosmic magazine and calendar image clipped in the composition. A Black mountain goddess engages in a warm self-embrace; her hollowed-out shirt becomes a portal for earthly and ancestral connection.The moon provides a reassuring shoulder kiss to remind us of our oneness and belonging, that it will indeed come back around. The title of the piece is a nod to the Jackson 5 song, I’ll Be There. As heard in the outro, “just look over your shoulders, honey, I”ll be there”.
Inspired by a one-word-prompt, “swing” inspired the selection of the clippings in this composition.