Salome Asega: “We need to build digital brawn to ensure we will see ourselves in the future.”

Where is Africa, Vol. 1, a collection of interviews with artists engaged in representing Africa across geographical spaces, just published by the Center for Art, Research, and Alliances in New York City.

A conversation excerpted from Where Is Africa, Vol. I — a collection of interviews with artists engaged in representing Africa across geographical spaces — just published by the Center for Art, Research, and Alliances (CARA) in New York City. CARA is launching the volume with a weekend of conversation and creation, including the Afrophon’ Reading Room curated by Gee Wesley and featuring recent artists’ books and independent publications from Africa, and a workshop on African artists’ manifestos led by Amandine Nana. For more information and to register (events space is limited), visit CARA’s webpage.

Emanuel Admassu: You’re first generation African American.

Salome Asega: Yes.

Admassu: Born and raised in Las Vegas, to Ethiopian immigrants. Is there an attempt to resolve the friction or overlap between these conflicting layers of influence and sensibility? It was interesting to listen to your Hyperopia interview, actively questioning specific labels that people try to impose on your work and your identity. One of the terms that came up was the notion of a translator — maybe because you have always been actively translating between multiple identities?

Asega: I like to think of my practice as an active practice in translation, reinterpretation, and negotiation with collaborators. I try not to center myself in the work, and instead collaborate with other artists to learn all the ways we exist in multiplicity. I think of my practice as storytelling that honors legacy, community, and my traditions.

Admassu: So, it’s been productive to think of yourself as a translator?

Asega: Yes, although there is a power dynamic I want to acknowledge in the term “translator.” When I make work it’s very much situated in a diaspora identity. I’m making work that can’t be distinctly “tagged” to place defined by borders. It’s just of the diaspora, as a global player, as someone who moves between nodes. But also, when I make work, I ask myself, Can my Ethiopian mom understand this?

Admassu: Absolutely.

: And that’s always a filter when I produce something. Is this legible to her? Would this resonate with her? So much of how I learned about a “Black experience” happened in