How Artist & Photographer Nadiya Nacorda Spends Her Mornings

Morning Rituals is an ongoing interview series exploring the way artists and entrepreneurs spend their mornings.

Our guest today is Nadiya Imani Loyisa Ntlabati Nacorda, a Blasian artist and photographer currently based in Syracuse, NY.

Born in Detroit to a Filipinx immigrant father and a Xhosa mother, Nadiya travels across the United States to photograph her family members dispersed across the country. Her quiet and intimate photographs depict the intricacies of multiracial identity and how diaspora communities redefine and reinterpret their cultural heritage while living in the United States.

We asked Nadiya to walk us through a typical morning.

What time do you wake up?

Since self isolating because of COVID-19, I’ve been waking up at 7am each morning. I’m really really slow to start my days though and just generally I’m the type that’s hard to get going. #Taurus

What’s the first thing you reach for?

My phone, to turn off my alarm and then my journal.

Walk us through the rest of your morning.

I typically start out by doing the bathroom stuff, then opening the curtains, journaling, and then meditating. I tend to wake up really slowly, especially if it’s a rare sunny morning in Syracuse. Sometimes, if I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll make myself breakfast before journaling, which includes tea and my daily vitamins.

How does your morning ritual influence your work?

I think for me, I see my morning rituals as a part of my work. For example, if I don’t do them, at times I feel off or misaligned, which of course doesn’t aid well in the flow of creativity. I am also journaling constantly and writing things down, which I see really fundamental, or again, a part of my work. It functions as a space to be in conversation with myself, but also the ideas that I have floating around in my head.

Speaking of work – what are you working on right now?

I am currently working on a short film script based on my relationship dynamic with my grandmother, a book published by KG Projects (it was set to launch next month, but obviously with COVID-19, things are on pause currently), and a photo and video based project looking at the feminine relationships in my family.

Nadiya Imani Loyisa Ntlabati Nacorda, Artist and Photographer

Nadiya Imani Loyisa Ntlabati Nacorda is a Blasian artist, photographer and Taurus currently living and working in Syracuse, NY. She was born in Detroit, MI to a Filipinx immigrant father and a Xhosa mother. Throughout the year, she travels around the country photographing her immediate family. Her work heavily draws from notions of intimacy, affection, displacement, secrecy, and generational trauma within the context of Black and POC immigrant-American family life.

Nadiya received her BFA in Photography & Film from VCU Arts in Richmond, VA. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Art Photography at Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts. Her work has been exhibited at the Midwest Center for Photography, the Detroit Public Library art gallery, RISD's Red Eye Gallery in Providence, RI, and Candela Books + Gallery in Richmond, VA. She is also a 2019 finalist of the Magenta Foundation's Flash Forward competition and was selected for the 2020 Lit List: Photographers to watch, hire and exhibit. Her first photography book will be published by KG projects this year.

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