Tsemaye Tite

I Never Thought the Sky Could Feel This Way

This body of work is an attempt to make sense of that feeling. Each image is a moment within this experience, not a direct narrative but an anthology of a presence. Some images hold onto the heaviness that lingers when alone, in empty spaces, in hands that don’t quite reach each other. Others have the fleeting moments of relief—the warmth of a quiet conversation, faith, tender friendships, the small but necessary joy which momentarily lifts us from the haze. In this way this element in the air is given shape, I can see it, and maybe dissect it with others who feel the same force.

“There’s an element in the air that pushes into daily life in suffocating, silent ways. Through it I find the growing realization that the world I want to love is frayed and in my heart I know it cannot be ignored. It’s an endless grief unrelated to a singular loss. There is no singular source, no single event I can point to. It is everything all at once;We are to forever bear witness to old, tired patterns that give birth worldwide to new, daily injustices, especially for Black people. It creates a fractal of fraught familial relationships and inner turmoil then seeps into the background of our existence.I fear my words cannot do justice to how I feel. It’s an ongoing process of understanding; what I’m feeling, what others feel, and how we can work toward good. Whatever that may mean.At its core, this is a deeply personal exploration, but I know I am not alone in the searching. The weight of the sky is something many of us carry, as quietly as we can manage. I hope these images offer a sense of recognition, a space where others can see themselves—not in the exact details, but in the acknowledgment that this is something we currently live with, something that shapes us, something that, even in the dark, does not erase our capacity to find light.This work is not about despair, though it may seem that way at first. It’s a rejection of the numb paralysis this air can demand. It is about being here, fully and lively, in all the complexity that entails. If grief lingers, so does the possibility to connect, to understand another. In this work’s world, that is enough.”