Ime Soul (fka Immanuel J.)

Ime Soul (fka Immanuel J.) is a live arts practitioner working on ephemeral installations, moving images, and performance. Ime Soul presents biomythological work exploring Blackness, abjection, sexuality, and the constraints of language as articulation. Soul’s video and sculptural work uses low-tech compiling and image manipulation to offer images that initially present as quickly digestible or salacious but are spaces for introspection and free association. In addition to generative studio time for videowork and assemblage sculptures, Soul’s practice includes borrowing form from the Baptist tradition of speaking in tongues and performative utterances as well as percussive movements engaging Black American stepping. Their performances misuse formal qualities of Black church. Often a combination of extended duration and high intensity, Ime Soul uses fatigue as a vehicle to open up a sensorial and reflective space. Like church, both witness and participation makes their work complete. Ime Soul received an undergraduate degree in Fine Art and American and Indigenous studies at Bard College (2022), as well as a graduate degree from the Center for Human Rights and the Arts (2024). Their work has been shown across New York State at spaces ranging from fine art institutions to public interruptions– Performance Space NY (‘26), CultureHub (‘26), Intercomm (‘24, ‘25), Glasshouse Project Inc (‘25) to name a few. Their work has been highlighted in Times Union, Chronogram, and the New York Times among others.

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