THE BEAUTY OF BEING SEEN.
Photo by: SEPHORA™
TIKA × SEPHORA™ | 2018 - 2019
Beauty has always been political. Who gets to be seen, who gets to be celebrated, and whose bodies are considered worthy of visibility have never been neutral questions.
As a Black, queer, plus-size artist and public-facing model, my participation in two Sephora Canada campaigns was about more than representation. It was an opportunity to exist visibly and unapologetically in spaces where bodies and identities like mine have historically been underrepresented.
Across #WithSephora: We Dare (2018) and We Belong to Something Beautiful (2019), I brought my lived experience, artistic identity, and personal understanding of beauty into a broader cultural conversation about self-acceptance, individuality, and belonging.
I wasn't interested in becoming a different version of myself to be seen.
I was interested in what might become possible when I was seen exactly as I am.
WE BELONG TO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL.
Sephora Canada | 2019
“Music is all in words. All you have is you. Everything that you cultivate, it's from your own creative mind and frequency.”
For me, belonging has never meant surrendering the things that make us different.
This campaign was an expression of creative sovereignty: the understanding that our identities, imaginations, and individual frequencies are not things we need to diminish in order to be welcomed.
Our beauty exists not in our sameness, but in the freedom to be entirely ourselves.
TIKA x SEPHORA™ 2018
YOUR CRUTCH WILL BE YOUR CAPE.
#WithSephora: We Dare | Sephora Canada | 2018
“Your crutch will be your cape. The things that you're most embarrassed about are the same things that will save you in the end.”
This was a deeply personal declaration about the relationship between shame and self-acceptance.
As someone whose body, identity, and artistic expression have never existed neatly within conventional expectations, I understood the power of embracing what the world might encourage us to hide.
What if the very things we've been taught to conceal are the things that make us extraordinary?
What if our perceived vulnerabilities are also where our greatest power lives?
“The beauty of being seen is the freedom to be yourself.”
DREAMS WE WERE NEVER GIVEN™
DREAMS WE WERE NEVER GIVEN™.
A Black Atmospheric Mythology.
What happens when we finally feel safe enough to dream?
There are worlds we inherit.
And there are worlds we must imagine for ourselves.
Dreams We Were Never Given is an evolving immersive artistic work exploring Black imagination, memory, tenderness, and the possibilities that exist beyond the boundaries of what we have been taught to believe is possible.
Born from a lifelong relationship with fantasy, absence, and the desire to imagine differently, the project is an invitation to consider what happens when imagination becomes a space of belonging.
A world is taking shape.
And some dreams are meant to be experienced before they are explained.
An immersive installation by TIKA.
Currently in development.
STEREOVISUAL™
The Future of Black Creative Ownership.
THE TALENT EXISTS. THE INFRASTRUCTURE DOES NOT.
Founded by TIKA, StereoVisual™ is a Canadian nonprofit cultural organization working toward a future where Black creators have greater access to the infrastructure, resources, and opportunities needed to develop, own, and sustain their original work.
Rooted in music, storytelling, interdisciplinary artistic practice, and cultural innovation, StereoVisual is evolving into a creator-centred ecosystem designed to move beyond access alone—toward ownership, creative autonomy, and lasting cultural legacy.
IMAGINE. CREATE. OWN.
Culture is infrastructure. Ownership is the future.
STEREOVISUAL™
We build the foundations, not the ceilings.
For partnership inquiries, institutional collaborations, and requests for our organizational overview, please get in touch.