BLACK BODY AMNESIA
A Living Archive of Black Life
Black Body Amnesia is a collection of poetry by Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, drawn from live performance, ritual, and embodied practice developed over more than a decade.
The poems move between grief, pleasure, memory, desire, disappearance, and survival. Many were first spoken, sung, or enacted before being written, carrying the residue of performance into the archive.
This work does not offer resolution. It allows memory to remain unfinished.
“Although my collaboration with Jaamil is new, I am learning about process, community and ritual. As a Caribbean, queer, transdisciplinary art maker, I feel mentorship and guidance in Jaamils leadership. They lead by example, creating ample opportunity, through convenings, sharings and workshops to make himself accessible to the communities he serves. With Jaamil, I feel this weaving and gathering happening between us. The works Jaamil creates have an perpetual relevance —- rest as both practice, method and theory is relevant to how he thinks about building sustainable art making practices amongst communities. Their dedication to Philly art makers like myself are a testimony to their commitment. Responsive art begins before the performance, they construct works that are inherently dependent upon collaboration and community input demonstrating the will of their work praxis. It is a pleasure to be deeply rooted in the imagination with them and I look forward to our joint makings, I believe we align in our hopes to transform, illuminate Black mundanity and to be in practice with the community. Our makings are a thoughtful response to our own archival histories.”
THE ARCHIVE
Black Body Amnesia brings together:
Poems from live performances
Performance texts and lyrics
Critical reflections and conversations
Visual documentation connected to the work
Together, these materials trace how Black life is remembered, fragmented, and held across time.
“Kosoko Performance Studio is a vital part of Philadelphia’s arts community. In my role leading FringeArts I witnessed directly the powerful impact of jaamil olawale kosoko’s boundary-pushing performance works. Their projects are deeply rooted in collaboration, community, and care, demonstrated by the highly intentional participatory and ceremonial elements of their performances. jaamil is deeply committed to supporting fellow artists and community members to sustain, preserve, and archive their art making practices, and has consistently made significant contributions to our city’s arts ecosystem for over a decade.”
Black Body Amnesia, 2nd Edition
The second edition presents a refined and focused iteration of Black Body Amnesia, centering Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s poetry alongside selected performance texts, visual materials, and conversations.
The poems move through intimacy, loss, eroticism, violence, tenderness, and care without explanation or instruction.
Press Reviews.
“ ...Kosoko’s physical struggle allows audience members to contemplate both the physical and emotional battles that accompany embodiment. Kosoko alludes to suicide when a doll falls face-first off of a table, which represents the ultimate escape of the body; however, Kosoko seems to advocate against this option by displaying his body struggling, thriving, and surviving during his wake work amongst the deaths that he illuminates. ”
“ ...Kosoko’s work is unique because it both particularizes and contextualizes identity. He shares personal content from to his late mother and his father, such as his father’s last voicemail. These moments surface as glimpses into his own particular journey in (re)communing with them. Kosoko is also concerned with contextualizing racial, gender, and sexual identities.”
Black Body Amnesia AUDIOBOOK
The audiobook captures an earlier iteration of the work, performed by Jaamil and rooted in the cadence and breath of the original texts.
Listening reveals rhythm, pause, and emotional register that live differently in the body than on the page.
