Rituals of Returning is a poetic extension of my thesis, Unstitching the Restrictive Seams: Reclaiming the Body Through Adornment. The written research explores how clothing, adornment, and collaborative making can become tools for bodily reclamation—particularly for fat and queer people from religious or restrictive backgrounds. Drawing on personal narrative, public research, and intimate garment-making processes, it considers how adornment becomes a form of agency, survival, and return.

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The film brings these ideas into motion. Film and photography have long been part of my practice—not separate from making, but another way of stitching together relationships, gestures, and meaning. The four people in this work—Ahmed, Gabe, Bex, and Dineo—are not just participants, but longtime collaborators and loved ones who have shaped my creative world.

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Their presence on screen carries both personal and collective weight. Through scenes of dressing, reflection, and adornment, the film explores how these acts become tools for returning to the body—not as something to fix, but as something to feel, to claim, to come home to. These intimate performances echo the broader insights of my public research, making visible a shared experience of reclamation, care, and self-definition.

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A button to read the full written thesis is available below.