Today we’d like to introduce you to Mo Wisdom.
Hi Mo, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Mo Wisdom and I am a Jamaican-American artist, researcher, and cultural worker based in Atlanta, GA. My visual mediums of choice are typically digital art programs, magazine collage, and acrylic paint on canvas. I have 8+ years of experience doing art and graphic design, and 3 years as a social media strategist and manager.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been an artist, but my committed pursuit of a professional career began in 2021, when I decided that my creative passion belongs not just to me. It also exists to be in service of my community. I started creating my tarot collage series, The Conscious Collage Tarot Deck, which is an ongoing spiritual mediation on how we as artists remix the symbols and images that surround us to make sense of the moment in time we occupy.
Since 2021, I’ve been vending prints of those collages at local artist markets, gradually adding more pieces and apparel to my shop offerings. I also cherish my time doing tarot readings for the people in my community that seek my services. In 2023, I started working at Studio WIP, a paint and sip street-art studio where I fell in love with spray-painting and graffiti. Both collage and spray-paint are mediums that place me in a beautifully intuitive flow that I hold with reverence. At the end of 2023, I also put out my first solo musical project, after 8-years of only pursuing music in the context of my high school marching band, both as a student, and then as an instructor with the percussion section. My music is where my aesthetic sensibilities merge with my intellectual endeavors, melting messages of liberation into sugary, bold, percussive dance beats in honor of the artistic legacy of my Jamaican heritage.
I’ve marched with local DCA corps, Atlanta CV, and taught music at my alma mater high school marching band program. I’ve also written articles for online publications, helped plan and execute photoshoots with Black Star Magazine, a student publication at Emory University, designed a film set for the production of a local documentary, Divine Pleasure, and I’ve even dabbled in designing jewelry, clothing, and upholstery. Above all else, I am is a creator. Whatever my spirit calls me to create, I jump at the chance to learn and incorporate into my artistry.
In every medium I work in, with every piece I create, I’m constantly reflecting on my personal ideals: to actualize the visions of my mind’s eye, realize the dreams of my inner child, honor the power held within the depths of my creative spirit, and empower nihilism through pure, hedonistic joy. I strive to create work that is authentically my interpretation of the world around me. I strive to generate joy for myself and people like me in spite of and with respect to the nihilism living in our modern times requires. My style and my medium is forever evolving to meet the demands of this existence we call life, but the message is consistent and clear: white supremacy is killing us, and every single person on this Earth better make sure they are not enacting violence upon themselves and their communities so that we may survive another generation. Embrace your own pleasure and embrace the pleasures of this life.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely has not been a smooth road for me. My family life is full of tumult and I’m not the kind of person that believes that we experience negative things for some divine reason. The only reason children experience neglect, abuse, or other terrible things is because capitalism has forced children into subjection. Children aren’t allowed the autonomy over their bodies and lives and that’s why they have to suffer in silence, or even suffer loudly to no one’s aid. Due to family issues, I dropped out of college in 2021 and I learned to explore what it means to be free and in complete ownership of my body and life. As I sing about in my song “What I Never Learned” I learned that fighting myself, putting myself down, picking myself apart, and viewing myself as a problem to be solve is something I learned to do, and I can just as well unlearn those habits.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a student researcher and creative, I’ve been really exploring the connection between my research and my community based art practice. My research positions me as curator in a sea of digital content, in an exercise in using curation and exhibition as method of community building and resistance. The exhibition I’m curating is entitled Divesting from the Algorithms: A #BlackDirectory Showcase
Black content creators face unique challenges when using social media websites like YouTube. This includes things like racial violence and harassment from other netizens. My research focuses on the kind of discrimination that comes from platforms themselves, that is waged through algorithmic moderation and recommendation systems that structurally marginalize already socially marginalized communities online. As a way to combat this structural bias, I am producing an exhibition of my curated creator directory, The #BlackDirectory YouTube Index. The #BlackDirectory YouTube Index is a directory of content creators on YouTube that features a predominantly Black collection of independent artists and scholars on the platform. The exhibition will feature a curation of videos from the directory as well as the opportunity for content creators to lead a panel discussion about the challenges they face creating content online.
Divesting from the Algorithms: A #BlackDirectory Creator Showcase is a public exhibition that proposes the need for internet users to divest from algorithmic recommendations systems. Instead, by engaging in content curation, we can explore new, more critical and communal relationships with digital content. Divesting from the Algorithms is an audiovisual installment that aims to educate attendees about algorithmic bias while facilitating space for creators and audiences to interrogate their experiences with algorithmically distributed content. My capstone project aims to bridge the knowledge gap between creators and audiences; the exhibition invites attendees to physically walk through a curation of videos from the directory and invites creators to lead discussion panels about their experience with content creation and consumption. This thesis also collects data from attendees about their experience with content consumption. By bringing together reflections from creators and members of their audiences, I aim to paint a clear picture of how Black netizens are processing and navigating algorithmic oppression.
I’m really proud of all the work I’ve been doing to pull this event together. Taking place on January 30th, 2025, Divesting from the Algorithms will be my curatorial debut and a huge milestone in my research project that aims to better understand the experiences of Black creatives online.
Here is the RSVP link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/divesting-from-the-algorithms-a-blackdirectory-creator-showcase-tickets-1978750562198?aff=ebdsshcopyurl&utm-source=cp&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I’m committed to a certain level of experimentation in myself. As an eldest daughter, I hold really seriously the responsibility to chart paths of possibility for my family. All the young children in my family will have the opportunity to follow my down my path, to come to me with their dreams of being an artist. My first niece already looks to my prints and stickers with such wonder and amazement. I truly treasure the chance to show her and others that living a life full of art is real and possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wizzytalks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wizzytalksalot/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl13fDczUFNX2hn4Ljni93A
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ashlizae?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@wizzytalksalot?lang=en
