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Sienna Kwami

Kwami in September 2025

    Zodiac                         ↑♉︎ ☉ ♋︎ ☽ ♌︎    Lunar Phase               new moon    Other Names              ti grande dame    Known For                 beautiful genius    Website                      siennakwami.com

Sienna Kwami (↑♉︎ ☉ ♋︎ ☽♌︎) is a beauty scientist, ambiance coach, idling (relaxation & leisure) specialist, pirate, bonne vivante, and the next life of a philosopher reincarnated as a cat reincarnated as a priestess reincarnated as a blooming baobab reincarnated as an astrophysicist reincarnated as a pâtissière reincarnated as an industrial designer reincarnated as a wandering poet.

Current Projects

Just for Fun

Years Active (Archive)

2010-2014

Sienna Kwami's creative self-expression predates 2010 (10/11 years old). However, 2010 is the year that they officially mark as the beginning of their archive. In 2010, Kwami began using web tools to create, share, and archive their creative self-expression online. After much trial and error, they committed to fashion, personal style, and photography blogging. Their longest running blog was called "Lait Fraise" and ran from 2012-2016. Kwami has always been drawn to the world of fashion, saying this on their new personal style blog, "ti grande dame":

At the same time, they were learning about business plans at school in tandem with watching their father start a business of his own. It was then that they realized their love of creating their own universe, especially through aesthetics. A lifelong artist, Kwami was lucky to have the support of their parents in their artistic endeavors throughout their childhood. During this time they kept a notebook of ideas that they would create brand identities for, just for fun. In 2014, they were enrolled into a pre-college graphic design program to help them further explore their interests.

"The Playground" a second-hand curated clothing store created by Kwami at age 12. This time Kwami had products but was still more interested in branding and photography than the business itself. Model: Magdelena Messenger.

By 2014, Kwami was always active is some creative endeavor. As a lover of fashion photography and film, they began photographing and filming their friends and self-publishing their work online. They seized any excuse to play in the world of fashion photography and branding. Around this time at school, they had started a fashion club with some friends after complaining to their dad that the clubs at school didn't interest them. Their dad prompted: "why not start your own club then?" Kwami started a magazine for the club called "Fleur." This trial run of self-publishing a magazine would eventually inspire the start of Things Magazine.

Kwami's first fashion film.

2015-2017

In 2015, Kwami officially launched Things Magazine (often shortened to Things Mag) with Mandusu Sidibay. Later, Penelope Mack would join the team. The magazine's mission was, primarily, to connect teens interested in style, art, and culture in the Boston area. The magazine mainly featured photoshoots, artwork, interviews, and op-eds by local talent as well as a directory of local, teen-friendly, arts events. The magazine also hosted meetups and workshops. Things released 4 physical print issues and 7 digital issues between 2015-2017. The magazine also had a blog with more frequent publishing. The covers featured Shane Kelly (Issue 001), Ella Synder (Issue 002), Mithsuca Berry (Issue 003), Ruthie Block (Issue 004), Orion Carloto (Issue 005), Bridget Austin-Weiss (Issue 006), Ish Qureshi (Issue 007).

Things Magazine

Things Magazine's digital archive on Issuu.

Things Mag event celebrating the one year anniversary of the magazine.

The final issue of Things Magazine (2014-2017), Issue #007, published in 2016 captured on the Wayback Machine.

By 2016, Kwami was preparing to apply for art college so they began experimenting with more mediums to grow their portfolio. They also attended a teen arts education program at a local contemporary art museum which encouraged them to experiment. Their experiments ranged from paintings, to their first fiber sculpture, to wire drawings, to art films, and more. During this time their photography work was also featured in several shows.

2017-2021 (College Years)

In 2017, Kwami began attending the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). They were supposed to major in graphic design (per their parents' advice) but chose to study fiber after touring the school and becoming enamored with a student's work on display. During their time at MICA they pieced together a degree plan that included all of their interests. They studied sound art, curatorial practice, and sustainability and social practice in addition to their fiber studies. Their time in MICA's fiber department also coincided with the launch of a natural dye program. Many of their fiber studies were a part of this experimental program. Kwami left MICA in 2021 with a BFA in Fiber and a minor is Sustainability and Social Practice. Their fiber work during this period spanned from fiber sculpture (in a more "fine arts" sense) to garment-making (naturally died and/or using recycled material only) to digital textile printing to natural dye gardening and processing.

Sienna Kwami's thesis project "oracle flag (generations of love) [we must act absolutely]." For more, go to their portfolio: www.siennakwami.com

Kwami's first gallery appearance at Waller Gallery in July 13, 2019 - August 31, 2019

From junior to senior year, Kwami's studies became more focused on garment construction, digital textile printing, and manual knitting machine operation. This new focus led them to create a project called "jwe lab" and a Knitting Machine Network (KMN). jwe lab was majorly focused in the intersections between fashion, personal style, garment creation, politics, womanism, and sustainability. The KNM existed very briefly and fizzled out due to Kwami spreading theirself too thin. However, the network was able to give two knitting machines to black women & non-binary artists.

An avocado dyed top. Kwami specialized in making garments out of rectangles/squares and hyper-simple patterns.

Kwami's final two years of college coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this divine reshuffling, they decided to pursue another long-held interest of theirs: a food project. Kwami's first attempts at food-based projects started around 10 years old. During their teen years, their focus was entirely devoted to fashion and the arts. During the lockdown period of the pandemic, Kwami found themselves immersed in stories of chefs who tied food, fashion, arts—culture—together seamlessly, seemingly a perfect blend of all of their interests. This was a period where pop-ups and cottage bakeries were becoming more and more popular. This produced a sense of democratization and therefore a clear sense of possibility for Kwami. They briefly launched their project "Tout Moun" which sold non-dairy kremas and operated as a test kitchen for Haitian-inspired treats such as vegan jackfruit pate, pinapple-plantain-rum-ginger jam filled coconut almond shortbread cookies, and lavender rooibos grapefruit juice.

During this time, Kwami also started "Rootedness," (2020) named after Toni Morrison's essay "Rootedness, The Ancestor as Foundation." The project created free audiobooks of selected Black political essays read for free by Kwami. There are total of 7 texts read by Kwami featuring the work of Walter Rodney, Pat Parker, Aime Cesaire, Angela Y. Davis, Huey P. Newton, Audre Lorde, and Amilcar Cabral.

Screenshot of the Rootedness Soundcloud page.

During their junior year, Kwami was a part of MICA's year long curatorial studies program. This program culminates in a group curatorial project. However, the COVID-19 pandemic began a couple of weeks before install. This inspired Kwami to start planning their own curatorial project, "Mache Trip-Nou" (Walk Our Guts) which they spent the next year developing. Mache Trip-Nou featured 4 non-binary and trans artists of Haitian descent—Mars, Mithsuca Berry, Nadia Wolff, and Tati au Miel—making work across various mediums.

3D flier and custom typeface or Mache Trip-Nou designed by Samantha Vassor https://samanthavassor.com/

Fundraiser poster for Mache Trip-Nou designed by Kwami. Text from Frankétienne's book "Dezafi" is collaged with scans of butterfly species found in Ayiti.

Sometime during all of this, Kwami also began using garageband for what they call "garageband therapy." They had used it since they were a teenager to experiment with making music whether that be film scores, songs, or intro-music for a video. They began more regularly recording songs in their closet in 2019 as "a way to avoid doing homework." Kwami notes that because their work is artmaking, they struggled to enjoy creative expression as a hobby. Making music became their first real hobby in adulthood since it allowed them to have fun creatively without the same level of commitment they would give their other creative work. They began releasing music under the moniker "sòsyè" (meaning "witch/sorceress") The project focused on creating songs in Kreyol Ayisyen so Kwami could learn the language and have an easier time understanding their grandparents who, though able to speak English, increasingly spoke Kreyol Ayisyen with them as their grandparents aged. The songs are often tagged with the phrases "pou tout moun seksi (for everyone sexy) and "seksi sòsyè." Kwami defined this project as "spellcasting in the club" given that most of the songs are dance tracks inspired by kompa, reggaeton, afro-beats, and other Black genres. They still sporadically make music under this moniker and the moniker "the dame of the house" to this day.

2021-2023 (Death & Rebirth)

After graduating from MICA and curating Mache Trip-Nou, Sienna went onto curate help curate on more show for artist and friend Mithsuca Berry's first solo show at the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA). During this time they described feeling jaded post-art school, a feeling that had been building since their junior year due to a number of reasons. They tried to "quit art" in the final months of 2021, claiming Berry's show would be their last hurrah. Of course, destiny doesn't work like that and at 3AM on a mid-December night, they regenerated their connection with their creative self-expression. A month later, they were invited to give an artist talk with Mobius Artists Group.

This period was marked by Kwami's digital floral arrangements dubbed "aura portraits' created with a 1990s program called PlantStudio. This period also began their drawing practice which featured black horned figures inspired by a popular Haitian kanaval character. Kwami never felt that they could draw well before a freshman drawing class and avoided drawing for many years. During this period, they decided to improve their ability and found that they really enjoyed creating artwork with oil pastels.

At the beginning of 2021, Kwami also started their "spiritual coming of age newsletter" ankò e ankò. For Kwami, writing was always like breathing and was an innate skill they sometimes took for granted in their younger years. A poetry class with Unique Robinson at MICA during their senior year helped them value that skill and utilize it with more intention. ankò e ankò published publicly available essays about Kwami's spiritual process until 2025 when they transitioned into writing regularly for their patreon.. This period of time saw an increase of writing as a medium of artistic expression for Kwami. They committed to writing poetry regularly and mailing a monthly poem to group of subscribers for year. This practice helped them realize just how integral narrative, language, and poetry are to their creative process.This period of time was incredibly introspective and hermit-like for Kwami. It was the closing of the first chapter of their life and a shedding/ending of many things. They often share about this period of time in their recent writing.

2023-Present

Now, sienna is vibing and working on their next magnum opus: bon bon spirale.A lot happened since 2023 as well, such as the publication of coming of age as a mermaid: death, grief, zombies, why i became a pirate, & seeing the ocean in everything’ as part of artist/sailor/water star Simone Johnson's digital merfolk happening hosted in 2023. Kwami credits that time as the official marker of a new era in their creative practice. it was during that period where Kwami began bon bon spirale, their pirate ship that moonlights as a creative studio.Kwami published a book of poems in 2024 titled "if i were an omen." The poems were described as "a collection of poems written over a two-year journey into the interior volcanic. flowing from my ceaseless interest to put words to the spiritual experience of 'coming of age,' this collection semi-chronologically strings together my field notes on meeting the mystery."but lemme break the 4th wall for a sec: tbh chronicling my creative self-expression was exhausting lol, i made this whole site in 2 days. i probably forgot some things. i'll keep updating periodically.if you want to know what i've been up to since 2023, please go to: www.siennakwami.com, my patreon, & my instagram: @sienna.esoterica <3 once enough time has passed, i'll update this section of the wiki :)

if i were an omen published by bon bon spirale's publishing house hierophant hour in 2024