2023 ILLUMINATIONS GRANT FINALIST
FATIMA JAMAL
Image courtesy of the artist.
Born in the American South, Fatima Jamal (b. 1990) is the WRITER AND DIRECTOR of the film No Fats, No Femmes. Her practice considers those discarded and disappeared from Black collective imaginings and networks of care. Named by Teen Vogue as one of the "coolest queers on the internet," Jamal is also known as 'fatfemme', a moniker that encapsulates life at the intersection of fat and femme identity -- "spaces that people are afraid to occupy," she names. A graduate of Morehouse College and The New School, Jamal produces work straining —perhaps, yearning— towards a world capacious enough to hold a fat, Black trans woman. Her work has been featured in ARTFORUM, SEEN Journal, LA Times, New York Times, TriBeca, & Tate Modern.