Marisa K Henderson

The intimacy of strangers. Rest in Peace Debbie #phd #phdstudent #phdresearch #death #grief #mourning

I never truly understood the significance of death. Not the passing of a loved one but the collective significance of death. This book took me to a place where death was a freedom; a power, for the enslaved. The slave trade created an environment where death wasn’t an ending but a righteous beginning. It created a space where folklore and traditions were merged and blended into a powerful newness which kept culture, hope and resilience alive. It kept us alive. But I won’t pretend this was an easy read, it has coloured my world forever, dressed it in something between pride and anger, pity and inspiration- it is yet to settle somewhere inside of me. There are more accounts like this for me to read, to take in and find a home. Today, I now know I’m no where near as resilient as my ancestors - sometimes dance parties and meditation just isn’t enough. However, it’s a must read, told with knowledge, care and pride. Thank you @professorvbrown - your insight and work has been invaluable to my project.

I imagine the claiming of duppies exhausting and brutal. Requiring only the majestic and relentless to bring them home. It is their presence that stops the beating of hearts - too beautiful to remember to draw breath. Installation by: @hewdjlocke #intheblackfantastic #phd #phdstudent #phdresearch #phdstudentsofinstagram #blackbritish #blackbritishhistory (at Night Dreams) https://www.instagram.com/p/CiiwjMQKCAQ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Love. The older I get the less final death feels. I’m not quite sure if that’s denial or avoidance. But each death I have felt, both strangers and loved ones, have made me question - how can I reimagine my experience of death grief and mourning. But the question I always get is why? Accompanied by raised eyebrows and shaking heads. Today, I arrive at the answer: love. Love of my culture and understanding the intricate parts of me, in hopes of loving me better. Learning to love beyond a physical presence, without the ‘normal’ modes of communication. And I guess, in a quiet way I want to demonstrate to my children that our love will continue beyond this lifetime. It’s a question I’ll circle back to as I explain my research question to someone new to me and my curiosity ... today, the simple answer is love.

The newness of grief. #justiceforchriskaba (at London, United Kingdom)

And after this journey I arrive to her with a heavy tongue and new aches. She watches, as I stumble to new beginnings breathless. She asks me to tell her my story, so I tell her, with shallow breaths, how aches became bruises and bruises became doubt - this journey too heavy and too loud and maybe, too long. She made my words echo, each sound lining the walls of my ears, making my eyes sting with fresh tears. “Reimagine”. She tells me. “Reimagine.” Collection: The Watcher, The Listener, and The Orator. “Vessels for your stories secrets.” By @linairisviktor

Yes. Yes there is. #intheblackfantastic #phd #phdlife #phdstudent #phdjourney #phdstudentsofinstagram #phdmotivation #blackbritish #blackbritishwomen #blackbritishculture https://www.instagram.com/p/CiDGKfQKth_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

This is my second trip to Egypt, first to Cairo. The pyramids are majestic, a photograph does not do them justice at all. There was an audible gasp from my fellow coach mates, and I as they came into view. Our guide, passionate and proud, answered every question we had expect the one I was afraid to ask. It was something like: Does the wake (honouring the dead) end? And if it doesn’t, aren’t these tours disrespectful? We tracked our way around Cairo, into the Museum of Egypt peering (but not touching or taking photographs) at Tutankhamon’s coffins, the mummies of his grandparents and finally the looted pyramids. I felt like an intruder in some way, that maybe the person/people who invested in this wake didn’t intend for this to be a space where light-shows took place each evening. I didn’t go to a light-show (intentionally) but it did make me question how we ensure our intentions, in the wake, are known, respected and adhered to beyond a lifetime? Is that even possible?

WAKE WORK: “a mode of inhabiting and rupturing this epistemology with our known lived and un/imaginable lives.” Christina Sharpe uses the ‘wake,’ in all it’s definitions to explore the legacies of slavery and how they manifest. Wake wake offers a way forward, a way to dismantle the signifiers of race (Stuart Hall) so we can create a new analytic to imagine new ways to live as legacies of slavery. My copy tells it’s own story I guess - some pages underlined with definitions and reminders and exclamation points. Other pages I am silent - depending on my whereabouts I’m either swallowing tears or allowing them to fall. In essence this book broke and mended me. Or maybe it answered questions that I didn’t know I should be asking. Either way, it spoke to my Blackness, me as a legacy of slavery - in my womanhood, motherhood, sexuality and offered the creative in me a way forward. But. How does wake work survive? As a writer how does my wake work survive publication and marketing strategies in British publishing? It’s a question (and a book) I’ll refer to often. #phdjourney #phd #phdlife #phdlife #blackbritish #blackbritishhistory #blackbritishculture #blackbritishwomen #christinasharpe #wakework https://www.instagram.com/p/ChRHkvhqAqG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I’m naturally curious. Annoyingly sometimes so, finding myself in the second of year of a part-time PhD isn’t really that surprising! There is always a question brewing, an answer somewhere, waiting for me to turn it over, understand it and then apply/share/nurture it. I’ve been that way forever and school has often given me the structure to find the answers. Lockdown provided the time and room to question, to wonder, to watch. Like many of us death, mourning and grief was loud. And, in some ways so extreme. If you were fortunate enough to not lose a loved one then, like me, you probably questioned, pondered the deaths that were frequently discussed on the news, on social media and potentially in your home. We all had access to the coronavirus figures that represented the lives lost and the very last moments of lives that were stolen in horrific and cruel ways. I knew I formed part of the collective grief - the weight in me, the tiredness and new ache told me that my body, at least, was reacting. But would should I do with this new feeling? How should I honour these deaths? The African diaspora has such a complex relationship with grief and so the questions began: • How does death figure in Caribbean diasporic literatures and cultures today? How is grief felt, displayed, shared, and understood? • How does the colonial past shape current practices of grief? • How can practice-based methods interrogate the fragments of the colonial archive and the cultural genealogy of grief differently? • How can creative practice respond to Stuart Hall’s understanding of Black culture as a site of ‘strategic contestation’ to provide new forms of Caribbean-British expression of mourning? So, I find myself in the second year of a creative-practice PhD with @birkbeckuol , supervised by Dr. Emily Senior and Dr. Jodie Kim to hopefully find answers and missing pieces of me.