Hoetep Blessings

Tabita Rezaire
Hoetep Blessings , 2016
HD video, plasma screen, copper Merkaba
12 minutes

In the video, Hoetep Blessings, Rezaire makes an offering to what she calls ‘Black spiritual femmeness’. Rezaire writes, ‘As a remembrance celebrating spiritual knowledge(s) and Black femme technologies, it acts as an oracle from the divine power of the c*nt, as a litany for survival and pleasure, and a means to weaponize the our melanated femmeness.’ Hoetep seeks to reinstall the power of the kemetic-bantu word ‘hotep’ (htp) – meaning to be at peace – against what it has recently come to signify on the Internet : ‘a problematic category of Black men’, Rezaire writes. Hoetep Blessing excavates htp’s meanings in various fields from the Hypertext Transfer Protocol – foundation of data communication online - to the neurotransmitter 5-HTP found in the Griffonia seeds – which increase serotonin and inner connectivity. According to Rezaire, Hoetep ‘rescues the spiritual power of the c*nt, of femmeness, of the ‘hoe’, within Blackness, that which the troll economy tries hard to disgrace.’ The Kemetic adage, ‘As for us, we do not use words but sounds filled with power’ teaches us that Ho(e)tep is one we should respect.