KEYSSH
DATTS
FELLOW
Meet UnMapping Fellow Keyssh Datts. Born in Southwest Philly, Keyssh is a community organizer and filmmaker who uses art to help people learn and unlearn for the betterment of humanity. As a filmmaker, they wrote and narrated a film exhibition piece called Succulent City, highlighting urban farmers in Philly for the Futures Exhibit Museum at the Smithsonian. They also worked with PhillyCam, and as a videographer, director, and editor on Chronicling Resistance, an archival and exhibitions project for the Free Library of Philadelphia that highlights those in the community doing anticolonialism work. Keyssh’s organizing work can be seen in THE-ard, WHYY, Variety, and other local news organizations. They created DecolonizePhilly—a multigenerational environmental justice organization—to help put power back into people’s hands. Keyssh is a recipient of the Community Leader Award by State Representative Dwight Evans from the Commonwealth of PA and a Lenfest Next Generation fellow. Their project WeTheRevolution.tv will serve as an online platform and archival database to archive the history of Philadelphia and provide community members with the resources to document their changing city.
KEYSSH DATTS BY DEJAH MCINTOSH
SITTING DOWN WITH KEYSSH
Keyssh Datts, UnMapping Fellow and founder of DecolonizePhilly, met with Writers Room Staff Lillian Fenzil to discuss their project, Free the Revolution TV.
Edited for Length & Clarity
Hi Keyssh, thank you for meeting with me today! How about we start off with you telling me a little bit about your UnMapping project?
Yeah, the UnMapping project I decided to pursue was called Free the Revolution TV, which is basically taking a lot of the archives that I've been able to document of social movements and putting it onto a platform. So really the work that I've been doing throughout the year has been trying to archive the changes within the city.
Yeah, that's wonderful. I also know you're working closely with DecolonizePhilly. Did you start that or is that something you've been working with for a while?
I started DecolonizePhilly. I would say the official start was last year in March. There was this fellowship called Rosine 2.0, and that was the first time I was able to get a space and really host a big event [to gather community]. Before that, I was doing little things that led up to me creating DecolonizePhilly. I hosted these series of talks with different people in the community. The first time I hosted an event that was close to DecolonizePhilly before it was like, DecolonizePhilly, was at PhillyCAM. It had like six or seven people. *laughs* Yeah, it had six or seven people. It was like a podcast-y type set up, and we all was talking about different issues.
Then, at the Rosine event, we had like 250 plus people. So then it was like, “oh wow,” seeing the idea start like, “OK, there needs to be some type of shift within the community as far as how we build the power,” to manifesting that [at the Rosine event] is like, “wow, this is crazy.”
That is wild! And that momentum continued, right? I remember seeing how many people were at your last event back at the Rotunda [The Fight for the Land Revolution]. That was so lovely to see so many people getting together to discuss these topics. How did your archival research for your UnMapping project tie in with your DecolonizePhilly work?
Thank you. So DecolonizePhilly—before I really started DecolonizePhilly, I was a part of a lot of different organizations. So that was the peace part, the Iglesias garden. I was in a lot of different organizing spaces, and the first thing I realized was that there was little to no documentation. And if there was documentation, the news would come, and they would basically leave in the middle of the speeches. So it was like the whole story wasn't being told.
At first, I thought that you need to have a press pass to document these different spaces. So I was like, “oh, there's official people,” and then I had to break down that barrier in my mind to be like, “OK, I'm just gonna show up and film.” And then after I started doing that, people seeing that I was showing up, started asking, “OK, can you come to this?” And then it was like, “OK”—I started getting known to document. People started requesting me, and then I realized once I got all of the footage, I started posting it on the page called DecolonizePhilly.
I wanted to get more visibility for organizers, but also, I wanted to show people that they’re not the only person within the city doing this work. There's other movements. I feel like we can know there's other movements, but being able to visibly see there's other people doing this... I think it is really important.
Yeah, it definitely is really important, and it's really nice to see you make all these ties within these different organizations as well and seeing you be able to provide a platform, make connections, and almost act like a middleman. Looking at your Instagram, DecolonizePhilly, it stood out to me how quickly you were able to take on the shift to focusing on Gaza and working with the free palestine movement alongside the other Philly-based organizations. It's really wonderful seeing all these organizations come together and support each other through your work.
Thank you so much. I think finding a through-line was hard because like I said, there's so many topics within social justice. DecolonizePhilly was founded off of a statistic that said, “of the 57 blocks where 10 or more people were killed, 53 were in historically redlined neighborhoods.” And looking at that data point made me realize there's a parallel line when it comes to land justice that could tie different issues in — whether it's gun violence, housing, pollution, the climate crisis — all these different issues can come at a parallel line of land, and also, we're all standing on land. So, I think that being able to find a common ground was hard, but I think in the long run it became nice because when you're able to settle in on something specific, you're able to concentrate the impact just a little bit more.
Yeah. That’s a wonderful answer! How have these experiences with DecolonizePhilly, your UnMapping project, meeting all these different people, working with all these organizations — how have they changed your goal over time? What did you learn about yourself in this process?
I think it has changed my goal into realizing like, [in the past] I usually didn't need community and resources to be able to produce good stuff, but then, to an earlier example, the first big event, the real launch of DecolonizePhilly in March of last year, we had so many people, and it was a feeling that I couldn't describe within the room. I wanted to live in that moment forever. But then I realized, oh, this has to stop because I can't promise these people that there will be another event because I don't have a location. I don't have the funding. It's feeling the sweetness of being in a moment and being able to give people great stuff, but also realizing you don't have the resources to reproduce those moments. And as a new founder, as a young person who doesn't have a degree in this, I'm saying I just building systems and structures, out seeking financial education, so being able to have a fellowship like UnMapping has been able to help me tap into resources to be able to experience what I do.
It's really cool. What was it like working with your cohort? Did they help you out with this as well?
Yeah, it was good. Moreso experience-wise. I know somebody in the cohort was working on the Save Chinatown documentary [Ailin], and someone was with the Shutdown Berks Coalition [Jasmine]. I was able to connect with like-minded folks to get information of other projects that people are doing.
Cool! I guess when it comes down to it, what's next on your plate?
So right now, I'm working on building out systems and structures, because like I said, to be able to run a nonprofit, you need to be able to set yourself up for the future. Wow, I feel like I'm talking real business-y. *Laughs* This is hilarious.
I wanted to get more visibility for organizers, but also, I wanted to show people that they’re not the only person within the city doing this work. There's other movements. I feel like we can know there's other movements, but being able to visibly see there's other people doing this... I think it is really important. [Note - after this interview, it was announced that Keyssh is a recipient of the Leeway Foundation’s 2024 Media Artist + Activist Residency]
*Laughs* That’s ok, it's ok.
Yeah, so to be able to run properly, you need to set yourself up with planning and systems. And so, I've actually been taking a break. One, for mental health reasons -- being at protests every day is an experience within itself. And then also, we're trying to create sustainability for these different movements. So, I've been doing the work of stepping back and taking care of my mental health, but then also trying to figure out what type of campaigns we wanna run, what systems, what do we want the day-to-day to look like for DecolonizePhilly? Because I wanna create something that is able to be passed on to the next generation and that can sustain and be able to scale globally.