We Will Be Who We Are

Boi and Aya challenge gender norms in the still conservative west African country, Sierra Leone. Through lyrical and provocative visual expression, We Will Be Who We Are is a confrontational nod to patriarchy and the creative riot that can dismantle it.

Boi and Aya marry one another to escape society's pressures to conform in the still conservative west African country, Sierra Leone. On that pact, they dream on all the possibilities that their African fluid identities gift them.

Through lyrical and arresting visual expression, We Will Be Who We Are is a gentle nod to patriarchy, the creative riot that can dismantle it and the ancestral origins that ground our freedoms. Embedded in magic realism, this visual story confronts tradition and culture with a strong sense of identity that reclaim its freedom.

I am inspired to tell stories like that of Boi and Aya to push for the liberation of our marginalized identities, especially in today's global context that is more and more antagonizing and discriminatory against black, African and queer identities. To date and like in many countries around the world, same sex love is illegal in Sierra Leone. And non-binary identities are harassed despite our African ancestral fluid identities. We are expected to fit within a society that is not designed by the diversity of who we are, forcing us to either submit or find creative ways to escape. We Will Be Who We Are is the story of that escape, as Aya buries society's expectations that imprisoned her spirit, marry her best friend, Boi, to inhabit a world they create and where they are free, at last.