Rukaya Salum Ali-Springle – RMIT School of Art Graduates

REALM

A self-portrait in essence, depicting a figure standing nude before a large, ornate mirror in an otherworldly forest. Her body is of earth, marked by a bubble-braid hairstyle in orange and cream, and large, fluorescent pink Zanzibari ear gauges. Her reflection, however, is a shetani of living fire. The fiery entity has five glowing eyes, fiery horns on its head and shoulders, porcupine-like spines of flame along its back, and an overbite of sharp teeth with curling, blue-flame tusks. The two beings—earth and fire—lock gazes in a silent, profound confrontation. — realm (fragment: A Story for When Your Shadow Begins to Speak), 2025, Digital Illustration, Procreate & Endless Paper, Dimensions Variable.

REALM is an immersive digital mural exploring how diasporic memory fragments and reforms across generations. This expansive landscape, created in Procreate and Endless Paper, features interconnected scenes floating in a white void—a visual metaphor for the liminal space of cultural displacement. From my position as a biracial (Bantu-Arab/Zanzibari-Pemban and Polish/Czech, British settler Australian) artist, the project grapples with the somatic retention of colonial violence and the loneliness of fractured inheritance.

Using glitch aesthetics and Afrofuturist collage, I investigate how trauma distorts cultural memory while creating a sanctuary for marginalised stories—a digital territory where marginalised stories can exist outside fixed categorisation. The work layers ancestral symbols with contemporary disruptions, treating the digital medium’s inherent fragility as a direct metaphor for the precarity of identity. Glitches become a language of resistance, subverting colonial visual regimes that demand legibility. Ultimately, the project invites viewers to navigate this space at their own pace, becoming active participants in reconstructing fragmented stories—an experience that mirrors the diasporic condition itself and resonates with Black feminist strategies of world-building through intentional instability.

About My Practice

My research-led practice explores the fractured topography of diasporic memory and biracial identity through digital collage and glitch aesthetics. I create immersive installations, expansive murals, and intimate digital works that serve as a refuge for marginalised narratives. Through a dreamlike, Afrofuturist lens, my work examines the somatic retention of colonial violence while challenging archival erasure and visual regimes of categorisation. These creations facilitate crucial socio-political discourse, inviting viewers to dwell in the generative discomfort of unresolved inheritance and witness the radical pursuit of Black joy and resilience.

Website: www.clitories.com
Instagram: @clitories

A lone huntress, stands poised in a tense standoff with a grotesque, two-headed lion shetani. She draws a bow carved from living roots, but the arrow trembles in her grip. The supernatural lion has two faces: one a lion with disturbingly human eyes, locked in calculation; the other a human face with lion eyes and a wide, glinting grin that mocks the hunter. Its body is a nightmare of contradictions, with a twisted humanoid torso and six arms of varying lengths, all ending in sharp claws. Perched in a skeletal tree behind them, three vulture-harpy shetani look on, their bodies a mix of vulture wings and exposed human flesh, with hair styled in intricate locs and braids. — realm (fragment: Do Not Hunt the Lion That Knows Your Name), 2025, Digital Illustration, Procreate & Endless Paper, Dimensions Variable.

A single, transformed víly cautiously emerges from a glitching, black hole on the outskirts of a surreal landscape. Her form has evolved beyond that of her kin: she has long, rabbit-like ears, a tail, and a small set of antlers. The skin on her back, where her wings meet her body, is raw and red, as if still healing from a metamorphosis. Unlike the entranced víly in the distance, her gaze is clear and direct, consciously assessing the viewer and her vast, unfamiliar new world. She represents a new, solitary consciousness, armed with adaptations for vigilance and survival. — realm (fragment: How the Quiet One Grew Ears to Hear the World), 2025, Digital Illustration, Procreate & Endless Paper, Dimensions Variable.

A community of women conducts a sacred ritual of care and ancestral connection around a massive baobab tree with a toothy portal. One woman paints protective sigils on the bark, an elder throws spices into a fire, two women anchor each other through a spiritual trance, a mother braids her daughter's hair, and a grandmother cradles a child. Adjacent to them, lying in the desert sand, is the monumental, three-headed form of the guardian shetani Kitimiri. Its emaciated, hermaphroditic body has one head panting in exhaustion, another alert and watchful, and a third doing both, all with eyes glowing blue. This spirit, inspired by a historical Swahili women's cult, oversees the ritual as a potent symbol of enduring, multifaceted resistance and protection. — realm (fragment: How the Women of Pemba Tamed a Spirit with a Dance ), 2025, Digital Illustration, Procreate & Endless Paper, Dimensions Variable.

A surreal standoff between a massive henna crocodile and a calmly burning woman. The crocodile's body is entirely covered in intricate, patterns inspired by Zanzibari henna designs. Its jaws are locked wide open in a glitching, eternal snap, unable to close. Before it, a woman is engulfed in flames, her body dissolving into embers and ash. Yet her expression is serene, and she holds up one hand in a relaxed 'shaka' sign, a gesture of hang loose defiance. The scene is a frozen moment of futile predation and transcendent calm, where oppressive violence is rendered powerless by serene dissolution. — realm (fragment: Why the River Beast Gnaws at an Endless Fire), 2025, Digital Illustration, Procreate & Endless Paper, Dimensions Variable.

Rukaya Salum Ali-Springle