Joëlle Antonie Gbeassor

If We Were Vampires thinks Black life through the metaphor of the vampire. Since the Enlightenment, Black life has been dehumanized and excluded from dominant historical narratives. This research paper challenges linear, progressive concepts of time and history as Western constructs and explores how non-normative temporalities – drawn from Black Studies – align with the figure of the vampire, which resists linear time and death. The vampire as a metaphor offers alternative frameworks for understanding Black temporality, as illustrated through an analysis of Ryan Coogler’s recent vampire film Sinners (2025). The accompanying found footage video essay stitches together fragments of sound, image, and text and traces, through the figure of the vampire, survival, death, grief, and memory. Influenced by Black feminist thought, oceanic memory, and artists such as Arthur Jafa and John Akomfrah, the work invites viewers to swim through mirrors and listen to the dead.