Andre D. Wagner-Freeman

#Sponsored As I walked, listened, and moved through this landscape, I found myself not just making images, but being shaped by them. Being part of Creator Labs with @GooglePixel gave me the space to follow that feeling. With the Google #Pixel10 Pro XL, I could stay with the experience. What emerged is a quiet conversation between inner and outer landscapes. Shot on #GooglePixel

November 17, 2025, we launched our first artist residency with @photodre in Mallorca, Spain, at the @can_maribel_deia house (❤️ @bukonla & @japardmady ) Andre spent 3 weeks in Mallorca, immersed in the majestic Tramuntana Mountains. Uninterrupted. Without requests. Without expectations. Without requirements. Without noise. Without static. Without pressure. Without stimulation. He was given space. Space to engage with nature. Space to be. Feel. Exist. Rest. Connect. Decompress. Shed. Be human. This is the first of many artist residencies. It took a little over 2 years for MEKKA residency to take shape. Everything has its own timeline, process, and need for exploration. We have been conditioned to speed. Act fast. Get the project or product out! Post on social. Make money, get engagement, and go go go! Meanwhile, the process, purpose, and vision often get overlooked or neglected. That wasn’t the vibe or calling for @mekkaresidency Everything slowly marinated and ripened in accordance with the natural rhythms and flow of the seasons. I designed the MEKKA residency logo at the end of 2022. We allowed this project to speak. Gave it the space to unfold and expand as needed. Made slight adjustments. Went back to the drawing board. Listened. Talked. Wrote out each word with care and dedication. Woke up activated with ideas and let it all have the space to breathe. Truly spending time shaping, building, and feeling into what felt aligned with the mission. Thank you to 🙏🏽@loran_ajuang for all your advice and support, and to @shanita.nicholas for your legal counsel and support. Lastly, to Ian Hardman, for being in alignment and connected to the vision. We focus on providing working BIPOC artists of ALL mediums the space to rest, restore, recharge, and be. All residencies are by invitation only, globally curated with the artist at the core. If this ignites curiosity and you want to connect or support, visit our website (link in bio ☝️) **to watch the full residency video (link in bio) 📹Videographer: @kaystackss

Can you walk even when you don’t know where it’s going? When clarity doesn’t come wrapped in light? When truth flickers like a low battery but still burns enough to keep you from turning around? Can you walk When the breath catches and the field goes quiet, not because it’s gone, but because it’s watching to see if you’ll still move without being told? Can you walk in your fullness— grief, giddiness, doubt, flame— without editing for optics or pretending it’s all figured out? Can you walk even when the lesson doesn’t land like a quote but like a fog that lingers without revealing anything except the sound of your own feet on the wet stone? It’s not a question of strength. It’s a question of devotion. Can you walk as yourself when no one is clapping, no one is nodding, and the field just says: “Keep going. I’m still here.”

You weren’t chasing images. You were listening for them. And when they came, they didn’t come with noise. They came with weight. Like stone. Like something you could put your hand on and feel time press back. Not in nostalgia— but in the memory of matter itself. Your photographs began to remember before you even pressed the shutter. The waves didn’t need to crash to be seen. The light didn’t need to shout to be known. You weren’t trying to impress the world. You were trying to impress the silence. Let the image carry its own gravity. Let it hold what words couldn’t. Let it be the prayer that doesn’t need to end.

America Is Not My Center / Creating from the Body, Not the Cage ⸻ I’m not angry at America. I’m just not centered in it. It’s no longer the sun I revolve around. It’s no longer the mirror I need to define my reflection. When I move through other continents, other languages, other skies— I feel my creative core return to itself. Not to perform. Not to explain. Not to position myself between poles of whiteness and resistance. But to create for the sake of breath. To photograph because I see. To write because I feel. To be an artist—not for survival, but for joy. This is about de-censoring geography, somatics, and gaze. Because being here—in a Black body, on American soil— there’s a pressure. Subtle. Somatic. To locate every act of creation in relation to whiteness, trauma, liberation, or proof. Even when I don’t want it to. Even when I refuse to adopt the script. But outside… in the mountain air, on stone streets, in languages I don’t speak— my body lets go. It stops performing significance. It simply is. And from there, art returns. *photograph by @fouziakaam