the déjà vu

Gabrielle Civil mines black dreams and black time to reveal a vibrant archive of black feminist creative expression.

Emerging from the intersection of pandemic and uprising, the déjà vu activates forms both new and ancestral, drawing movement, speech, and lyric essay into performance memoir. As Civil considers Haitian tourist paintings, dance rituals, race at the movies, black feminist legacies, and more, she reflects on her personal losses and desires, speculates on black time, and dreams into expansive black life. With intimacy, humor, and verve, the déjà vu blurs boundaries between memory, grief, and love; then, now, and the future.

Publication date: February 22, 2022

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 

Page count: 240 pages

ISBN: 9781566896221

Gabrielle Civil is a black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer originally from Detroit. She has premiered fifty performance artworks around the world. Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish, Experiments in Joy, ( ghost gestures ) and in and out of place. She teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.

A Poets & Writers New and Noteworthy Book

“An evocative work of art that brings to life an era ripe for a revolution.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“I count Civil as a trailblazer with my generation of writers committed to Black feminist consciousness, as a fluid, genre busting, ‘idiosyncratic’ archive, dedicated to uncontained, vulgar, and shimmering cycles of curiosity.”

—Erica N. Cardwell, The Brooklyn Rail

“Each page of the déjà vu opens up space by addressing time through dreams, memories, archived performances, and visitations to old writings with fresh eyes.”

—Amy Bobeda, Full Stop

“An exuberant collection of texts and artifacts by a Black feminist performance artist.”

—Kirkus

“[Civil] fuses history and Black feminist tradition with personal meditation, moving around and outside the confines inherent in the categorizing of time.”

—Alta

“Expansive, feminist and inspirational.”

—Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine

“With this work, Gabrielle Civil continues to model generosity, bravery, and vulnerability as core principles of black feminist performance, creativity, and living.”

—Alexis Pauline Gumbs

“Civil soldiers for the possibility of black life to dream beyond the confines of colonialist rhetoric laden within modern world systems.”

—jaamil olawale kosoko

“Affirming the power of black dreams and black time, the déjà vu notes metaphysical links between the ancestors and the stars. It is an astounding book.”

—Wendy S. Walters

“This is the book I wish I’d had as an artist as a young woman. And it’s the book I’ll relish in sharing now."

—Cauleen Smith

“the déjà vu is a rousing, eclectic black feminist project. Here, Gabrielle Civil has crafted a pedagogical model for writing performance art.”

—Alexis De Veaux, author of Yabo

“[Civil] goes deeper than ekphrasis or arts criticism, toward an experience that’s closer to that of intimately living with, and within, the text of our culture.”

—Anaïs Duplan, author of Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture

“Civil inspires a life of love for the self, for others, for the human condition.”

—Ronaldo V. Wilson