Contemporary Black Canvas: Recent Episodes
Dr. Pia Deas, Professor of African American Literature, interviews Black novelists, poets, filmmakers, visual artists, and radical gardeners and farmers
Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing scholar Therí Alyce Pickens about her most recent work Black Madness::Mad Blackness published by Duke University Press in 2019.
Currently, Therí A. Pickens is a Full Professor of English at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. She received her undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and her PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Her research focuses on Arab American and African American literatures and cultures, Disability Studies, philosophy, and literary theory. In addition to her most recent work, Black Madness::Mad Blackness, she has written New Body Politics: Narrating Arab and Black Identity in the Contemporary United States. She also ushered in a new set of conversations about Blackness and Disability when she guest edited the 50th anniversary issue of African American Review in the Summer of 2017.
In this episode, we will be discussing how Dr. Pickens’ work as she describes it, “ aims to architect a series of conversations that retool our theory and praxis for and about the Black mad and the mad Black.”
Please join me in welcoming Therí Alyce Pickens.
Twitter: Therí A. Pickens
Website: tpickens.org
Octavia Butler: Fledgling
To find Dr. Pickens:
Personal Twitter: TAPPhD
Professor, English
Chair, Africana (formerly African American Studies)
Bates College
To Find Dr. Pickens’ Work:
Author, Black Madness :: Mad Blackness (Duke 2019)
Editor, Arab American Aesthetics (Routledge 2018)
Editor, Special Issue of African American Review on Blackness and Disability (2017). Available here.
Author, New Body Politics (Routledge 2014)
Authors Mentioned on Show:
Tananarive Due
Nalo Hopkinson
Tavia Nyong’o
Paule Marshall
Gayl Jones
Percival Everett
Toni Morrison
Mat Johnson
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In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with award winning poet Geffrey Davis. Davis has authored two successful books Revising the Storm, a 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize winner and most recently Night Angler , the recipient of the 2018 James Laughlin Award. Geffrey Davis is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas. His work has been widely published and he is the recipient of numerous awards and has earned fellowships at Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. His work explores the depths of familial frustrations, milestones in new parenthood and the process of mending wounds from generational trauma. Join us as he shares his unique journey of finding purpose in poetry, shares advice on “hacking our inhibitions” and discusses the importance of his most recent poetry collection, Night Angler, as an “ongoing love letter to his son.” The vulnerability and honesty of his story underscores his message for listeners to “love the body that produced this work as much as you love the art itself.” To read more on Geffrey, hear selections of his poems, or see his upcoming reading schedule, please visit his website.
F. Douglas Brown Icon and Begotten
Cave Canem Black Poetry Retreat
Jericho Brown The Tradition
Tiana Clark I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood
The post EP 26 Poet Geffrey Davis appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we are sharing an audio recording entitled “ It’s A Commitment,” an audio recording. This audio piece features esteemed dance scholars Dr. Halifu Osumare and Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild. This is part of a larger, artists’ interview series conceptualized and hosted by Margaret Kemp, an Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance at UC Davis, and produced by Alexander Adams. They were kind and generous enough to ask us to share this recording with Contemporary Black Canvas to include as part of our Black Arts Movement series. For links to the guests and their work, please check our show notes. Please tune in and enjoy.
Scholars
Margaret Kemp
Halifu Osumare
Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Books
Dancing in Blackness
The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip Hop
The Black Dancing Body
Black choreographers moving: A national dialogue
Everybody Creative Arts Center
Black Choreography Moving Towards the 21st Century
Digging; The Africanist presence in American performance, dance and other contexts
The post BAM EP 5 Scholars, Dancers, and Choreographers: Dr. Osumare and Dr. Dixon Gottschild appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas where we celebrate the depth and breadth of Black artistic and intellectual traditions. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Rashad Shabazz, an Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry within School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University and an affiliate faculty member at the Lincoln Center of Applied Ethics. Dr. Shabazz’ research interests are in human geography, Black cultural studies, gender studies, and critical prison studies. He joined us on our show to discuss his book, Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago. Join us and hear how Dr. Shabazz’s growing up in Chicago shaped him as a person and a scholar. Hear how Chicago police, law enforcement, and city officials responded to the influx of Blacks into Chicago during the great migration. Hear Dr. Shabazz explain, in depth, what “prisonize” is and how it shaped the Black experience in Chicago during the 20th century. Join us for a deeply moving and transformative conversation about how the structures of prisons are replicated in the everyday living spaces and living environments of Black Americans. To learn more about Dr. Shabazz and his work, please check out his book Spatializing Blackness and keep an eye out for his future work on the development of the Minneapolis Sound.
Rashad Shabazz
Spatializing Blackness
Minneapolis Sound
Native Sons
Stateway Garden
Robert Taylor Homes
Levee
Richard Wright
Mumbai Abu Jamal
Angela Davis
Assata Shakur
Govan Mbeki
Ruth First
Nelson Mandela
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Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with scholar and activist, Abdul Alkalimat. In our conversation today, he begins by discussing how influential his family of activists and scholars were on his early development and his lifelong commitment to the freedom struggle. Our discussion focuses how he, together with Conrad Kent Rivers and Hoyt Fuller, founded the artist’s collective, OBAC, the Organization of Black American Culture in Chicago in 1967. We discuss OBAC’s role in Black Arts Movement and in creating the Wall of Respect mural. The Wall of Respect, a mural of black leaders, changed the tone of Chicago, strengthened its Black community, and inspired a thousands of artists across the country to not only embrace the Black Arts movement but to also create cultural murals in other neighborhoods. The story of OBAC and the Wall of Respect was captured through a combination of essays, and artifacts in his book The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago edited by him Robin Crawford and Rebecca Zorach. Dr.Abdul Alkalimat has been and continues to be a substantial force in the black community. Currently, outside of his long career in academia, he is maintains a variety of digital archives, including one focused a collection of his work and pertinent information related to liberation movements since the 1960’s and the other is a dedication to Malcolm X. Throughout his career, Alkalimat demonstrates the importance of knowledge to freedom and survival. He urges listeners to keep generational records as they are an “important part of our DNA”. To find his work, please check out his website: www.alkimat.org.
http://brothermalcolm.net Malcolm X dedication Site
http://alkalimat.org Abdul Alkalimat archive
http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/content/wall-respect Wall of Respect Book
https://interactive.wttw.com/dusable-to-obama/africobra Africobra Information
http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/shows/list/underground-railroad/stories-freedom/henry-box-brown/ Henry Box Brown’s Bio
https://interactive.wttw.com/dusable-to-obama/dawsons-black-machine William Dawson’s bio
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/jackson-joseph-harrison Rev. J. H. Jackson’s bio
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/feb/24/jeff-donaldson-art-kravets-wehby-gallery Artist Jeff Donaldson & Africobra
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/margaret-burroughs Margaret Taylor-Burroughs’ bio
The post BAMAA EP 4 Scholar & Activist Abdul Alkalimat appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. This week we had the pleasure of speaking with Meg Onli, the current Assistant Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Please join us for this two-part series. In this episode, we speak to Meg Onli about her life and work as a curator. In part two, we speak to Meg Onli and a guest artist about Onli’s latest exhibition, Colored People Time, an exhibit in three chapters that opens in February 2019 and closes in December of this year. Please see our shownotes for the link to this exhibition. In this episode, I talk to Meg Onli about her move to Chicago in 2005 to pursue graduate school and a career as a conceptual artist and how she realized that she was better suited to be a curator. Before she joined the ICA as an Assistant Curator, Onli was the Program Coordinator at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. She was also the recipient of the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and the creator of the website The Black Visual Archive. Meg Onli’s first exhibition Speech/Acts at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia (2017) focused on Black poetry in order to explore how the social constructs of language have shaped the black American experience. To find out more about the current exhibit please visit www.icaphila.org.
For more information & exhibition dates and times visit
Institute of Contemporary Art
For more on Meg Onli’s new exhibit (February 2019) visit :
Colored People Time: Mundane Futures
Artists Meg Onli mentioned on this episode:
Carolyn Lazard
Aria Dean
Matthew Angelo Harrison
Otobongnkanga
Claudia Rankine
Dr. Kellie Jones
Harryette MullenM
Tony Lewis
Brooke O’Hara
Sharon Hayes
Julia Bloch
Simone White
Up and coming artists: Carolyn Lazard, Cameron Rollin, Aria Dean Matthew Angelo Harrison
Resource she relies on: Other artists
Words you live by: To find happiness in my own labor
Where can we find your work: Institute of Contemporary Art
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On this episode, I am joined by CBC’s research assistant, Jasmine Newton. In this episode, we interviewed architectural designer, poet, and visual artist, Komi Olaf. His visual art has been inspired by asking the question, “What does African heritage look like with technology?” He thus, imagines a world where colonization does not exist and instead a world in which hybridity and a mixture of culture and identities have emerged and flourished. Not only has his visual art explored Afrofuturist concepts but his spoken word poetry and architectural design has also utilized this technological lens at the intersections of race, culture, and identity. Bringing art and technology at the forefront, his work challenges social and cultural norms by imagining and reimagining worlds beyond perceived confinements. He is also apart of MadeMill, a collective of professional developers whose mission is to “ make product creation and social innovation accessible, affordable, in order to connect the services and resources necessary to move an idea into reality.” Olaf was recently apart of a group exhibition entitled, AfrOURban. This collective’s objective is “to document and express the many characters of the metropole on the [African] continent and how these inform culture or are informed by it. Tune into this week’s episode to hear more about his migration from Nigeria to Canada and how he uses art as a means to navigate through these two identities and the challenges he has faced as an artist. You can find Komi Olaf’s work at his website komiolaf.com where you can purchase his works, commission for art work and watch his spoken word poetry.
References Mentioned On the Support:
Kaduna
Caravaggio
Johannes Vermeer
Salvador Dali
Shane Koyczan
Jalel ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Khwaja Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi
Zaha Hadid
Ben Enwonwu
Frank Gehry
“Roots:The Saga of an American Family” by Alex Haley
Leonardo Davinci
British Colonization of Canada
“Sankofa Eagle Clan”
“Cairo”
“Space Party”
“Barbershop Blues”
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Chikis
“Silent Night”
What is Black Art?
Sara Golish
Future Histories
Ottawa
Canadian Festival of Spoken Word
Mademill by Prototype D
“Afro mobile”
Red River Rebellion
Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene
Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself by Osho
Imagine by Jonah Lehrer
Up and Coming Artist You Recommend:
Allan Andre
Resources You Rely On:
Books
Words You Live By:
“Be Your Future Self”
How Can Our Listeners Find and Support Your Work:
Komiolaf.com
The post EP 23 Visual Artist, Architectural Designer, and Poet Komi Olaf appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, where we celebrate the depth and breadth of the Black artistic and intellectual traditions. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas. Before we begin, I want to encourage all of our listeners to check out our new and beautifully re-designed website. Our website now gives a much better a more comprehensive understanding of all of Contemporary Black Canvas’ projects. Be sure to check us out! Let us know you’re listening! Underneath our “About” tab, click on “Contact Us” to sign up for our newsletter, send us feedback, or recommend an artist. You can find us at www.contemporaryblackcanvas.com In this episode, I interviewed Khalilah Brann, an educator, and education activist, writer, institution builder, and publisher. Her career as an educator has fueled her passions for teaching and decolonizing the minds of underrepresented and misrepresented communities across the country. She is the founder of CREAD, Culturally Responsive Educators of the African Diaspora, whose mission is to “ to support teachers, educators and community members in ensuring the positive racial identity development through education of young people of the African Diaspora.” Most recently, she has also co-founded and launched her publishing company, DeColonizing Education. Their first book, co-written by Khalilah Brann and Chemay Morales-James, the ABC’s of the Black Panther Party, was published in December 2017 and is now available. Their book includes extension activities and learning guides for educators and parents. The book is skillfully designed to appeal to ages 7-12. Tune into this week’s episode to hear more about her transformative junior year of highschool, her successful and humbling moments in the classroom, and the individuals who shaped and nurtured her teaching passions. You can find Khalilah Brann’s work at her CREAD website at creadnyc.com and you can purchase a copy of the ABC’s of the Black Panther Party at decolonizinged.com.
For Colored Girls
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Push
Tira Randall
CREAD
ABCs of the Black Panther Party
Decolonizing Education Publishing Company
Paulo Freire
Michelle Alexander Interviews Angela Davis
Assata: An Autobiography
Thinker, Educators, Liberators You Recommend:
Teach Freedom by Charles M. Payne and Carol Sills Strickland
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy Degruy
Dr. Geneva Gay
Pedro Noguera
Gloria Ladson- Billings
Resources You Rely On:
Humans
Youtube and Google
Words You Live By:
Assatta Shakur’s Chant:
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.” [therefore I must execute and revise]
Where can our listeners find and support your work?
creadnyc.com
The post EP 22 Educator Khalilah Brann appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
Welcome to Contemporary Black Canvas, where we celebrate the depth and breadth of the Black artistic and intellectual traditions. I am your host, Dr. Pia Deas, in this episode, we interviewed painter, sculptor, and printmaker Wadsworth Jarrell and fashion designer Jae Jarrell. Their works, contributions and founding of the AFRICOBRA Movement has been inspired by the need to continuously uplift and empower their communities with art that is colorful, joyful, and strong. The Jarrells along with other founding members, Jeff Donaldson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, and Gerald Williams formed the collective in 1968 in Chicago. They believed that their skills could be better put to use by creating art rather than protesting and thus made revolutionary art that instilled pride and possessed a heavy political aesthetic. Jae Jarrells fashion designs which were inspired by the Black Arts Movement and the individuals who would adorn these pieces as they fought for liberation and equality. Likewise, Wadsworth Jarrell’s visual art was inspired by Black leading figures, Black life in Chicago, and jazz. Their artistry taps into their philosophies and principles of creating art that reflected the “electricity of the atmosphere” during the revolutionary movement. From Jae’s early exposure to the arts and design to Wadsworth’s experience in the military, tune into this week’s episode as they take us back in time to 1968 and the start of it all: A moment where political and social issues needed to be addressed through art and the burgeoning of the creation of a new African American school of thought and artistic language to meet the needs of the times.
Art Institute of Chicago
Jeff Donaldson
Barbara Jones- Hogu
Kevin Cole
Gerald Williams
AfriCobra Principles
The Revolutionary Suit
Revolutionary (Angela Davis)
Black Prince
The post BAM Ep 2: Jae and Wadsworth Jarrell appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
I am delighted to welcome you to a new series within the larger Contemporary Black Canvas series. This month in honor of Black history month we are premiering the first two episodes of our new, on-going series, the Black Arts Movement Audio Archive. The Black Arts Movement Audio Archive is the first audio archive of its kind preserves the voices of artists important to the Black Arts Movement and scholars whose emerging work in the field provide us with a deeper understanding of the Black Arts and Black Power Movement. You can find this new series on our website by clicking on the left header “podcast” and then selecting Black Arts Movement Audio Archive. This is an ongoing and developing series and episodes will be released periodically through the next year and beyond.
This week we had the benefit of speaking with Dr. Naomi Long Madgett, esteemed and award-winning Poet, Educator, and senior Editor of the Lotus Press. Dr. Madgett’s career and press coincided with the Black Arts Movement and while her aesthetics do not place her directly within BAM, she is still an important poetic voice whose work defies easy literary periodization. Born in 1923 she has been blessed to see the genesis of many great eras and wars that influenced her early years & recollections of life. After attending the first high school for African Americans west of the Mississippi, Sumner High School, Dr. Madgett then returned to her home state to complete her college education at Virginia State University. Join us in discussion of her family history, living through world wars, traversing prejudice, and how an intimate relationship with her father strongly shaped her convictions and deep admiration of lan guage and literature. Learn about the foundations of Dr. Madgett’s affinity for poetry and her steady ascension to prominence in community with fellow poets, writers, and great figures of the African American intellect. Additionally, join us to hear about her friendship with Langston Hughes and the day she met Countee Cullen at his home. Enjoy a dialogue rich in our history and sprinkled with excerpts from Dr. Madgett’s autobiography, Pilgrim Journey.
Click here for more information & to purchase Dr. Madgett’s publications:
https://www.naomilongmadgett.com/publications-available
For more information visit:
- https://www.naomilongmadgett.com/
-
Paul Laurence Dunbar
-
- Herbert Woodward Martin
- Rosewood Massacre
-
The Simple Stories by Langston Hughes
My Lives & How I Lost Them by Christopher Cat in collaboration with Countee Cullen
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In this episode we had the pleasure of speaking with Tommy “Junebug” Joshua, the founder & visionary behind the North Philadelphia Peace Project. Joshua is a Philadelphia native with deep roots in the rural Greensboro, NC. Strong family ties led to deeply vested communal bonds during his adolescence & well into adulthood that heavily influenced the mission of his work. Explore the history of his family, the Doggetts, the impact of industrialism on Philadelphia, & learn how both his city experience and his country roots translated into his early activism. Joshua’s recognition of the necessity of having a safe space, his fervent desire to address the socio-economic issues that plague many Black communities, and his realization that a vegetable garden and school would provide an essential nourishing space in his home community, inspired him to create the North Philadelphia Peace Park. The North Philadelphia Peace Park is a community garden with plans for a school. The North Philadelphia Peace Park generates individual and communal agency by promoting the value in returning to our roots, living off the land, and providing food in a food apartheid system. The North Philadelphia Peace Parks seeks to stress community by utilizing the motto: “what you can contribute please do; what you need please take.” For more information about the North Philadelphia Peace Park, please check out their Facebook page. Join us & tune in.
For more information, please visit:
http://phlassembled.net/m/sovereignty/index/north_philly_peace_park/
Interested in getting involved, donating, or researching some of the programs mentioned? Click these links!
- University of Pennsylvania Diverse Design Program
- https://www.design.upenn.edu/diverse-design
- Occupy Philadelphia
- http://occupyphilly.org/
Tommy Joshua’s Hip-Hop Influences:
- Ice Cube: Death Certificate
- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWNMi4yJao
- KRS-One: You Must Learn
- http://youtu.be/RDd7UbJmdmw
- Public Enemy: Rebel Without a Pause
- http://youtu.be/q0b0jIaCEHU
To volunteer:
Work Party every Sunday at 2216 W. Jefferson in North Philadelphia
To donate/contact:
North Philadelphia Peace Park of CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia
1315 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
The post EP 21: Tommy Joshua, Founder of North Philadelphia Peace Park appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
This week on Contemporary Black Canvas we are pleased to present our first co-hosted interview. On this episode, I, Dr. Pia Deas, am joined by our CBC Research Assistant Madison Washington. Stay tuned to hear our engaging and inspiring interview with Supreme Dow, founder and executive director of the Black Writers’ Museum, located at Vernon House in Vernon Park, a large community park in Philadelphia’s historic Germantown neighborhood. The Black Writers Museum is a cultural archive featuring a vast collection of Black literature. Since its opening in 2010, the museum has been an intergenerational inspiration to the Germantown neighborhood and beyond, providing exhibits, tours of their collection, book signings by renowned authors, and the annual People’s Poetry and Jazz Festival. Dow was born and raised in Germantown. Germantown served as a focal point for activism during the 1960s and 1970s. His parents were committed to education and activism and they were instrumental in nurturing his lifelong appreciation for Black literature. Dow’s favorite Black writers include: Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Amiri Baraka. Dow was inspired to establish the Black Writers Museum – the only of its kind- because he believes the museum, through its exhibits and programming, fosters critical dialogue about Black literature and culture.
The museum is housed in the historic Vernon House in Vernon Park at 5800 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA. To support the museum, visit them at http://blackwritersmuseum.com/ or call (267) 297-3078 to schedule a visit.
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On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I had the pleasure of speaking to Jeri Lynne Johnson, a conductor and the founder of Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. Jeri Lynne Johnson is deeply committed to building the diversity of the contemporary orchestra and its audience. On this episode, we learn about her love for classical music and how attending her first symphony when she was seven years old, shaped her decision to become a conductor. Ms. Johnson was so passionate about conducting that earlier on in her career, she conducted for free in order to gain experience and master her craft. As she grew more as a conductor, she was faced with discrimination in the workforce. In response to her own experience, she created the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra in Philadelphia with the goal of having the orchestra and the orchestra audience reflect the diversity of the city it is in. Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra in Philadelphia serves as a model for the contemporary twenty-first century orchestra. Once word got out in Philadelphia that there was a Black conductor and a diverse orchestra, Ms. Johnson has had the support of the local black and latinx communities and quickly gained national recognition for her work.
Check Out:
–Marin Alsop
–Paul Freeman
–Jason Ikeem Rodgers
Quick Fire Round:
An upcoming artist that we should be excited about:
Ifetayo Ali
Words that you live by:
Tell everybody that you love them while you can.
Favorite resource:
My favorite resource is sunlight. I love the sun. I would sit in a sunny patch all day long like a cat. I always want to meet outside because the weather is so beautiful.
Where can we find and support your work? You can always support us online. We just updated our website and you can stream and listen to us online as well. Our upcoming programs are listed on our website: https://www.blackpearlco.org/
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On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I had the pleasure of speaking to J Mase, the III, a Black/trans/queer poet and educator. He is also the founder of AwQuard the first ever trans and queer people of color specific talent agency. He is author of “If I Should Die Under the Knife, Tell My Kidney I was the Fiercest Poet Around” as well as “And Then I Got Fired: One Transqueer’s Reflections on Grief, Unemployment and Inappropriate Jokes About Death.” As an educator, J Mase has worked with thousands of community members in the US, the UK and Canada on the needs of LGBTQIA youth and adults in spaces such as k-12 schools, universities, faith communities and restricted care facilities among others. On this episode, we talk about he came to realize that poetry was his ministry, the development of his voice as a poet, and how he came to speak truth to power in white progressive spaces. Check him out on Facebook, twitter and of course Awqward Talent Agency.
Check Out His Work:
JMase Performs
J Mase Website
Huffington Post Articles
Ambiguous Power Guy
Check Out Work He Recommends:
Trans Sistas of Color Project
Trans Justice Funding Project
Reggie Cabico
Vita E
Lamont Dixon
Saul Williams
Yellow Rage
Dane Figuero Edidi
Proudly African and Transgender
QuickFire Round
Resource You Rely On: Noor, a Queer Muslim Group
Words You Live By: God Is Still Speaking
How Can We Find and Support Your Work:
Awqward Talent Agency
JMase Performs
J Mase Website
The post EP 18 Poet and Educator J Mason, III appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we had the pleasure of interviewing the mixed media visual artist, Amber Robles-Gordon. She primarily works and is known for her use of found objects and textile to create assemblages, large-scale sculptures and installations. Her work is representational of her experiences and the paradoxes within the female experience.
Robles-Gordon has over fifteen years of exhibiting, art education, and exhibition coordinating experience. She completed her Masters of Fine Arts from Howard University in November 2011, where she has received annual awards and accolades for her artwork. She has exhibited nationally and in Germany, Italy, Malaysia, London, and Spain. Throughout her career, she serves as an advocate for the Washington, DC area arts community. As of November 2004 through July 2012, Robles-Gordon has been an active member of the Black Artists DC, (BADC) serving as exhibitions coordinator, Vice President and President. Robles-Gordon is also the Co-Founder of Delusions of Grandeur Artist Collective. Tune in to this episode to learn the important female influences on Amber’s life, her artistic practices, and the power of visual journaling as a source of healing and transformation. To find out more about her work, visit her website at amberroblesgordon.com.
Mentioned on the Show:
Black Artists of DC
Resource I rely on: Sunlight
Favorite Quote: Stay on the path – you will have no choice
Where to Find Amber Robles-Gordon:
https://www.amberroblesgordon.com/
The post EP 17: Mixed Media Visual Artist Amber Robles-Gordon appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
On this 1/2 hour special edition of Contemporary Black Canvas, we are highlighting the sixth annual BlackStar Film Festival 2017. For this episode, we were delighted to welcome back festival founder Maori Holmes (Episode 5) and independent filmmaker M. Asli Dukan (Episode 10) to talk about this year’s festival. The sixth annual BlackStar Film Festival, held in Philadelphia August 3rd to 6th 2017, showcases black filmmaking from around the world with more than 60 works screened. The theme of this year’s Festival is resistance, and BlackStar will be honoring Ava DuVernay at its annual Awards Ceremony, headlined by Pharoahe Monch at World Cafe Life on August 5th at 7:30 pm. You can find out more information about the parties, exhibits, films, the shorts program, the youth program, and roundtables and purchase tickets or register for the free events at blackstarfest.org. To donate to support the tremendous work of this and future festivals, please go to blackstarfest.org/donate. To find out more about M. Asli Dukan’s work, including the short she is premiering at BlackStar, Resistance: The Battle of Philadelphia, please visit her website.
The post EP 16: Special Edition – BlackStar Film Festival 2017 appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I had the pleasure of interviewing historian Russell Rickford about his most recent book, We Are An African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and The Radical Imagination. Dr. Rickford is an Associate Professor of history at Cornell University. In we are an African People, he traces the development of Black Nationalist schools across the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He contextualizes this movement within a larger history of the period and within the impulse towards Black Nationalist thought in the African American tradition. More specifically, he discusses how these schools, despite their differing political ideologies, shared a commitment to cultivating Black awareness, reviving Pan-Africanism, and thinking about political and cultural connections across the diaspora and with Africa. He discusses the political evolution of these schools. Join us to hear Dr. Rickford discuss his early days as a cub reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, his work with the late Dr. Manning Marable’s Malcolm X project, and how his interest in Black Nationalism led to two of his books, a biography Betty Shabazz, Betty Shabazz: A Life Before and After Malcolm X and more recently his scholarly work We Are An African People published by Oxford University Press this past spring. He is also the co-author, with his father, Dr. John Russell Rickford, of Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, and the winner of an American Book Award. You can find Dr. Russell Rickford’s books at your local independent bookstore. You can find Dr. Rickford blogging on the African American Intellectual History Society at AAIHS.org.
And, before we get to the interview, for our listeners in the Philadelphia area and beyond, we want to encourage all of our listeners to attend BlackStar Film Festival this August. The sixth annual BlackStar Film Festival, held in Philadelphia August 3rd to 6th, 2017 showcases black filmmaking from around the world with more than 60 works screened. The theme of this year’s Festival is “resistance,” and BlackStar will be honoring Ava DuVernay at its annual Awards Ceremony, headlined by Pharoahe Monch at World Cafe Live on August 5th at 7:30 pm. For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit blackstarfest.org.
For Your Easy Reference:
We Are An African People
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America
Manning Marable
The Malcolm X Project
The Martin Luther King Papers Project
Betty Shabbazz by Russell Rickford
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Black Power
Stokely Carmichael
Frantz Fanon
Freedom Library Day School
Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English
The post EP 15 Dr. Russell Rickford and We Are An African People appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, I spoke to LaNeshe Miller-White who, together with Carlo Campbell and Walter Deshields, founded Theatre in the X in 2013. Theatre in the X is an outdoor performance collective that produces and performs several plays in Malcolm X Park in Philadelphia each August. Join us on this episode to learn how LaNeshe Miller-White first realized that she loved acting, how Theatre in the X found inspiration from Amiri Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory Theatre, and why it’s important to Theatre in the X to ensure accessible, free Theatre to communities within Philadelphia.
Check It Out
Theatre in the X
LaNeshe Miller-White
Carlo Campbell
Walter Deshields
Black Arts Repertory Theatre
Amiri Baraka
A Black Mass
No Child
Proscenium
Dutchman
The Slave
First World Theatre Company
Community Education Center
Philadelphia Public Space Grant
The Sisters Are Alright
Up and Coming Artist To Support
James Ijames
Words to Live By
“Be the light”
Where to Find Their Work
Theatre in the X (Facebook)
Theatre in the X (Website and Mailing List)
The post EP 14 LaNeshe Miller-White and Theatre in the X appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
This week at Contemporary Black Canvas, we are excited to introduce you to Leah Penniman, co-founder with her husband Jonah Penniman, of Soul Fire Farms, their revolutionary, family-owned farm located in upstate New York. Soul Fire Farms is committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system. They actively fights institutional racism and food apartheid within communities by giving easy access to healthy food and offering hands-on learning opportunities throughout the year. Their programs include the Food Sovereignty Program, the Black and Latinx Farm Immersion Program, the Uprooting Racism Immersion, youth programs, and activists retreats. Join us on this episode as Leah talks about her early connection to the forest and how at age sixteen, she began working with The Food Project in Boston. Leah shares how in 2006 she and her husband purchased land in Petersburg, New York. Over a number years, they built Soul Fire into a full farm operation which officially opened in 2011. Soul Fire Farms is definitely a pioneer and we are excited to hear about the life and work of the farm. You can find their program applications on their website at www.soulfirefarm.org. To learn more about how to financially support their work through in-kind donations or financial contributions, please go to: http://www.soulfirefarm.org/support/
UPCOMING ARTISTS YOU’RE EXCITED ABOUT?
Naima Penniman and Alixa Garcia, co-creators of Climbing Poetree in their upcoming album “Intrinsic”. Check out Intrinsic and all of their projects here.
RESOURCE YOU RELY ON?
My farming mentors at Many Hands Organic Farm
WORDS YOU LIVE BY?
“Truth, Breath, Patience”
The post Ep 13 Soul Fire Farm with Leah Penniman appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this week’s episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we had the pleasure of interviewing scholar GerShun Avilez about his most recent book, Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism. In Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism, Dr. Avilez challenges the belief that the Black Arts Movement was a “dead end” and instead asks “What if it wasn’t”? On his search to find the continuities between the central questions and themes explored by the artists of the Black Arts Movement and the work of artists from subsequent artistic eras, Dr. Avilez offers surprising and meaningful connections between artists who we would not ordinarily pair together. This work offers offers a deeply nuanced and highly engaging analysis of Black art in the 1960s and beyond. Dr. Avilez is a cultural studies scholar who specializes in contemporary African American literature and visual culture as well as American literature. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Tune into this week’s episode as we learn how he spent his school lunch periods, the profound impact reading The Color Purple had on his life, the lessons he learned from his first ‘C’ grade in college, and how his undergraduate mentor played a vital role in his decision to become a professor. Be sure to pick up a copy of his work Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism at your local independent bookstore or through the University of Illinois Press.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE REFERENCES MADE IN THE SHOW:
Alice Hines
Alice Walker
Black Arts Movement
Joyce Joyce
Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism
Gloria Naylor
Ed Bullins (JoAnne)
Adrian Piper
Faith Ringgold
Toni Morrison
Spike Lee
John A. Williams
Marlon Riggs
Larry Neal
Cornelius Eady
Susan Smith
UPCOMING ARTISTS YOU’RE EXCITED ABOUT?
Glenn Wygone
Paul Beatty
Octavia Butler
Ghana Must Go
RESOURCE YOU RELY ON?
Friendship
WORDS YOU LIVE BY?
Love Yourself
Laughter
WHERE CAN OUR LISTENERS FIND AND SUPPORT YOUR WORK?
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/66mhh5by9780252040122.html
https://www.academia.edu/
http://englishcomplit.unc.edu/people/gershun-avilez
The post EP 12 Scholar GerShun Avilez appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
This week on Contemporary Black Canvas we had the pleasure of interviewing physician and poet Irene Mathieu. Irene Mathieu eloquently balances her passionate interests in both the sciences and the humanities. As a child, her parents encouraged the legitimacy and even the fusion of the arts with the sciences and she has truly embodied this ideology in adulthood. Irene is a physician, poet, writer, artist, and photographer, and humanitarian. She received her M.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 2015 and is currently a pediatrician in Philadelphia. She is the author of orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017) and the galaxy of origins (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). She is the recipient of the 2016 Bob Kaufman Book Prize, as well as a Fulbright scholar and a Callaloo fellow. Her books take a poetic and analytical look at human relationships with the earth and each other, privilege, racism, and love. Her love of language is evident in her interweaving of English, Spanish, and even scientific terms. She use the original word, without translation, in order to maintain the purity of the word in its original language and to prevent the loss of meaning in translation. Ever creative and consistently innovative, she is now working on a collection of poetry focused on the intersection of class and race privilege. Please support Irene Mathieu by visiting her website irene.mathieu.com, following her twitter account, gumbo_amando, or keeping up with her blog motochaskache.com!
Here’s a list of the people she mentioned in the interview:
Claudia Rankine
Arecelis Girmay
Elizabeth Alexander
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop
Yolanda Wisher
Pay it forward:
Donika Kelly’s Bestiary
Brit Bennett’s The Mothers
Safiya Sinclair
Inspired by:
Arecelis Girmay
Robert Frost
William Carlos Williams
Nawal El saadawi
Tracy K. Smith
Natasha Tretheway
Li-Young Lee
Jesmyn Ward
Audre Lorde
Junot Diaz
Edwidge Danticat
Eduardo Galeano
Resource she relies on:
People (her support system)
The post EP 11 Pediatrician & Poet Irene Mathieu appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
On this episode of Contemporary Black Canvas, we had the pleasure of interviewing filmmaker and founder of Mizan Media Productions, M. Asli Dukan. Asli’s interest in film and speculative fiction began in childhood and has flourished into a vibrant career where she uses film to explore the possibilities of societal transformation. She has written, produced and directed several short speculative fiction films that have screened at festivals across the country including the ImageNation Film and Music Festival in New York City and the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival in Seattle. Her feature length documentary film projects include Invisible Universe, a documentary about the historical representations and participation of Black people in the genres of speculative fiction and Songs for Nina, a music and travel documentary following the “Daughters of Nina” orchestra on their French tour as they pay homage to the late singer/pianist, Nina Simone. Her next projects are the speculative fiction web series, Resistance, and the anthology horror film, Skin Folk, based on the book by the award winning speculative fiction writer, Nalo Hopkinson. As one of the leading voices of Black speculative fiction, Dukan tours the country lecturing about Black Speculative Fiction history. Join us as she talks about the first speculative fiction story she wrote as a child about a fictional universe and what compelled her to start her documentary “Invisible Universe”. To check out the trailer for her forthcoming film “Invisible Universe” visit http://invisibleuniversedoc.com and “Songs for Nina” http://songsfornina.com. To check out her other work, upcoming projects and initiatives visit maslidukan.com. If you are interested in supporting these two films in post-production, please consider donating to support the film financially by making a contribution to her through her fiscal sponsor Fractured Atlas:
https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=596
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PEOPLE AND BOOKS ASLI MENTIONS:
Invisible Universe
Speculative Fiction
Octavia Butler
Dawn (Xenogenesis Bk.1)
Andrei Tarkovsky
Ingmar Bergman
Dave Davidson
Nalo Hopkinson
Samuel R. Delany
The Jewels of Aptor
Conference at Howard University
Tananarive Due
Steven Barnes
East Coast Black Age of Comics
Utopian Fiction
The Comet by Du Bois
White Fantastic Imagination
The Octavia E. Butler Collection at The Huntington
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Conversations with Octavia Butler
Up and Coming Artists
Alex Smith
WORDS TO LIVE BY:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.”
RESOURCES TO RELY ON :
My Computer
The post EP 10 Filmmaker M. Asli Dukan appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this week’s episode, we had the pleasure of conducting an interview with Greg Burnham and Marcus Williams, creators of the newly released Tuskegee Heirs comic book series! Tuskegee Heirs focuses on five young, African American pilots following in the aviatic tradition of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen. The legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen is significant and this comic seeks to pay homage to their greatness. In this way, they are able to inspire children who are able to see main characters that look like them. Greg and Marcus have been working together for over fifteen years. They act as a dynamic and creative team-Greg is the writer and Marcus is the illustrator. For them, representation matters-and they aim to provide strong, fully developed characters enveloped within a dynamic fusion of history, science fiction, and action that takes the characters around the world as they race to defend the world. They released the first installment of Tuskegee Heirs in December of 2016, and this is just the beginning! Tune in and immerse yourself in the wonder and folklore of the Tuskegee Heirs!
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THESE VIDEOS:
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
- Part 4
WORDS TO LIVE BY:
“Practice”
“Educate Yourself”
“Be open”
“Be passionate”
“You have to know your past to know where you are going”
RESOURCES TO RELY ON:
“Cool Images”
“Love”
“Support System”
HOW TO FIND TUSKEGEE HEIRS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.facebook.com/tuskegeeheirs/
https://www.facebook.com/Gregburnhambooks/
http://marcusthevisual.com/
http://marcusthevisual.com/gregburnhambooks/
Email:
Tuskegeeheirs@gmail.com
ORDER BOOKS, SHIRTS, POSTERS, AND SOCKS HERE:
Tuskegee Heirs Store
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE/HEARD? SUPPORT THEIR KICKSTARTER:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2120208298/tuskegee-heirs
The post EP 09 Tuskegee Heirs (Marcus Williams and Greg Burnham) appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
This week’s episode features a delightful and engaging interview with poet and scholar Evie Shockley. Professor Shockley grew up in Nashville Tennessee and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is the author of the poetry collections the Half-Red Sea, The New Black, and the forthcoming poetry collection Semi-Automatic. She has also penned a critical collection Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry. Evie Shockley is the recipient of the Holmes National Poetry Prize. Her work has been also been recognized through Fellowships with Cave Canem, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture among others. Stay tuned to learn more about the South that Evie Shockley grew up in, how she had an epiphany that changed her career direction and, and the synergistic relationship between her scholarship and her poetry. To support Evie Shockley’s work, please pick up her poetry books Half-Red Sea from Carolina Wren Press at carolinawrenpress.org or The New Black from the Weslyan Poetry Series available at upne.org, and her critical work Renegade Poetics from the University of Iowa Press at uipress.uiowa.edu And, of course, pick up her new collection Semi-Automatic when it comes out this fall.
Iowa Summer Writer’s Workshop
Alice Notley
Lyn Hejinian
Cave Canem
Duriel E. Harris
Dawn Lundy Martin
GE Patterson
John Keene
Harryette Mullen
Giovanni Singleton
Squaw Valley Community Writers
Brenda Hillman
Emerging Artists To Support:
Play Dead Francine J. Harris
There Are Things More Beautiful Than Beyonce by Morgan Parker
Field Studies Samiya Bashir
Telepathologies Cortney Charleston
Words I Live By:
I come to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Resources I Rely On:
The work of others: Drum Voices by Eugene Redmond, The Muse Is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word, and Black Chant: Languages of African American Postmodernism by Aldon Nielsen.
The post EP 08 Poet & Scholar Evie Shockley appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this week’s episode, I am delighted to bring you my lively and engaging interview with the poet and novelist, John Keene. In this wide-ranging conversation we discuss his early artistic pursuits, encouraged by his parents, towards drawing, visual art, and writing, the writers who mentored him, and his long-standing fascination with African diasporic history. Moreover, he gives us a particularly in-depth look into his inspirations, experiences, and craftsmanship as a novelist and poet who is engaged with experimental forms. John earned his B.A. at Harvard University and an MFA from New York University. As a long-time member the Dark Room Writers Collective, he cherishes the “electric atmosphere” and the connections made with the individuals of this group to this day. John Keene’s work includes his poetry book Seismosis, with drawings by Christopher Stackhouse, and his experimental novels Annotations and Counternarratives. John Keene, a professor at Rutgers University in Newark, NJ, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the New York Times Foundation, Yaddo, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. You can find is work through major booksellers and you can find him blogging on-line: at http://jstheater.blogspot.com/.
Noteworthy Poets and Authors from the Past and Present
Ishmael Reed
Allen Ginsberg
Terry McMillan
Alice Walker
Clarence Major
Samuel R. Delaney
Delores Kendrick
Elizabeth Alexander
Martin Espada
Derek Walcott
John Edgar Wideman
Kevin Powell
Marilyn Hacker
Mae Henderson
Kenzaburo Oe
Yasunari Kawabata
Paule Marshall
Richard Bruce Nugent
Langston Hughes
Inspired by
Lucy Terry Prince
Phillis Wheatley
Paule Marshall
Ishmael Reed
Kamau Brathwaite
Michael S. Harper
Rita Dove
Jay Wright
Theodore Wilson Harris
Amiri Baraka
Sonia Sanchez
Russell Atkins
Norman Pritchard
Gwendolyn Brooks
Wole Soyinka
Pay It Forward
Kerry James Marshall: Mastery
Resource you rely on
New York Public Library
Here at CBC, we love to support our featured artists. Support John Keene by ordering his books online or in-person at your local bookstore. As for social media, you can support him by following his blog.
The post EP 07 Poet and Novelist John Keene appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this episode, I interviewed Pascale Boucicaut, a culinary artist, and Adachi Pimentel a photographer, who together form the artistic team behind Dishes of the Diaspora. Dishes of the Diaspora, a project that was funded by the Leeway Foundation, documents ten cooks in of African descent in Philadelphia. For this project, Pascale and Adachi join the cooks in their home kitchens, witness the dishes being made, and have wide-ranging conversations with their hosts about the significance and meaning behind diasporic dishes. These cooking sessions are documented by Pascale and Adachi both through photos and through the stories the cooks tell. This project explores and illuminates the narrative behind key staples in African Diasporic cooking such as coconut milk, rice, and bananas. Through a look at cooking practices, ingredients, and tools utilized in each dish, Pascale and Adachi explore how food history is central to appreciating and understanding African diasporic identity and ancestry. Tune into this week’s episode to hear about Pascale’s beginnings in the kitchen with her father, Adachi’s passion for documentary photography, the importance of African connectivity, and how they decided to embark on this ancestral journey together. To see their work on display now through April 2017, visit their exhibition at the Philadelphia Folklore Project. To view select photos of their exhibition or to follow their upcoming exhibition schedule, please visit their website at http://www.dishesofthediaspora.com. To contact them, please send an email to diasporadishes@gmail.com
Interested in the projects and dishes Pascale and Adachi mention in this week’s episode? Click on the links below:
Yemanja
Paloma
Mariam- Fufu
Iris – Arepas de Maiz
Zita- Hudut
Evelyne- Pen patat
Soulfire
Rice Growing/ Production
Upcoming Artist To Check Out:
Wayne Lawrence
Resource to Rely On:
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston: A Life In Letters
Zora Neale Hurston Folklore Collection at the American Folklife Center
Zora Neale Hurston’s Field Recordings
How To Find and Support Their Work:
www.dishesofthediaspora.com
diasporadishes@gmail.com
The post EP 6 Dishes of the Diaspora with Pascale Boucicaut and Adachi Pimentel appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this week’s episode, I caught up with filmmaker, festival organizer, and curator Maori Holmes. Most recently, she is the founder of the Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia. Prior to Black Star, she was worked with the Jazzyfatnastees to put on the Black Lily Film and Music Festival in 2007 and 2008. She has directed and produced her feature documentary, Scene Not Heard: Women in Philadelphia Hip Hop, which chronicles the untold story and role that women played in the development of hip hop within Philadelphia. Within the interview, Maori describes her life story as it pertains to how she got to where she is today. One of the best takeaways from this interview is Maori’s continued strive to accomplish her goals-definitely an inspiration for all.
Maori Holmes received her BA in History from American University and her MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University. She is a recipient of the Leeway Foundation, as well as a Fellow of the 60th Flaherty Film Seminar. She has received awards from many organizations in the arts, including the Knight Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and VisitPhiladelphia, to name a few. Previously, she has worked at other locations in Philadelphia, including Temple University and the Netter Center at University of Pennsylvania. She is currently the director of public engagement at the Institute of Contemporary Art. These professional roles have inspired her to find a way to infuse curation with the Black Star Film Festival.cd As for the future, Maori gives us a small glance into what she’s got planned. She discussed returning to working on her craft of film directing, possibly pursuing a new screenplay or her own television show. Make sure to follow all her new endeavours.
The Blackstar Film Festival is present and active on all the major social media accounts. Click the following in order to be directed to its instagram, facebook, or twitter accounts.
You can also check out d the Blackstar Film Festival website by clicking here.
Interested in any of the artists or festivals mentioned in the show? Check out these links!
Collaborations:
Richard Nichols
The Roots
Mercedes Martinez
Michele Byrd McPhee
Sara Zia Ebrahimi
Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter
Ursula Rucker
Julie Taymore
Ava Duvernay
Haile Gerima
International House
Leeway Foundation
National Black Arts Festival
International African Arts Festival
Odunde
Malcolm X Festival
Scribe Video Center
LA Rebellion
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Artists She Recommends:
Terence Nance
Roni Nicole Henderson
Amy Sherald
Shawn Peters
Ja’Tovia Gary
Resource She Relies On:
A few close-knit friendships
Words that you Live By/Song that is the Soundtrack of your life
Never Stop-The Brand New Heavies
The post EP 5 Filmmaker, Curator, Festival Organizer Maori Karmael Holmes appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this episode, I had the honor of interviewing Washington-D.C. based visual artist Akili Ron Anderson. Akili Ron Anderson is a stunningly versatile visual artist. His work includes breathtaking stained glass, sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, set design, and photography. His art celebrates African people and culture and emphasizes the importance of maintaining cultural and ancestral practices. His work pays tribute to the African and Black experiences by incorporating many African symbols, patterns, and culturally specific references. In his over 50 years a visual artist, he has carried out a mission to make sure that all members of the community have access to art by designing art for many cultural, religious, and public institutions. He is a faculty member in the Department of Art at Howard University and he is the co- founder of the NationHouse Organization. His works have been exhibited at Duke University and Hampton University. Anderson has been a member of the Nation-African Liberation Arts Ensemble and he is currently a member of the “AfriCobra” artists’ collective. In this episode, tune in to hear the stories of his moment of “awakening,” how his seemingly mischievous acts as a child (re-appropriating coat hangers) blossomed into extraordinary works of art, his fascination with the African face, and his thoughts on collectivity. To follow Ron Akili Anderson’s work, or his upcoming special events and projects visit his website at www.akilironanderson.com.
Interested in the artists and exhibitions Akili Ron Anderson mentions on the show? Click these links!
- Robert Jay Nash
- Sankofa I & II
- Black Power
- March on Washington
- The origins of the High Five or ‘Slapping Skin’
- Duke Ellington School of the Arts
- National Conference of Artists Convention
- Emory Douglas
Paying It Forward
- Amber Robles Gordon
- A 50 year Retrospective of Black Art and Life
- 50 year Commemoration of the Black Panther Party
- Hearne Fine Art Gallery
The post EP 4 VISUAL ARTIST AKILI RON ANDERSON appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this week’s episode, I had the opportunity to interview sound artists Mendi and Keith Obadike. Mendi and Keith Obadike began experimenting with conventional music, but naturally expanded their endeavors. As conceptual and sound artists, their projects seek to go beyond any and all expectations of sound, music and genre in order to sonically create and recreate fantastical, historical, and contemporary interactions within the black experience. Keith is an Associate Professor in the college of arts and communications at William Patterson University. Currently serves as a key art advisor for the Times Square Alliance. Mendi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute and she is also a poetry editor for Fence Magazine. Their works include Big House/Disclosure, Four Electric Ghosts, Numbers Station series, Sour Thunder, and Phonotype. They are frequently called upon to creatively conceive and construct sonic and visual productions based on archival collections. They are recipients of the Rockefeller New Media Arts Fellowship and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, to name a few. You can find additional biographical information, view their past and current projects, books, and other media at their website: http://www.obadike.com/
To view excerpts of selected projects, click Numbers Station 1, Numbers Station 2, Numbers Station 3, Four Electric Ghosts, and Sonic Migration: Morning Comes
Their books are available for purchase at http://www.journal1913.org/publications/mendikeith-obadike/
They encourage listeners to invite them to their own local art shows and institutions. Also, If you would like to contact them, you can do so via email at mendiandkeith@gmail.com
Or contact them them on social media!
Interested in the sound artists, companies and projects mentioned in the show? Check out these links!
Collaborations:
- Charles Albert Tindley
- The Staples Singers
- Paloma McGregor
- Patricia McGregor
- Kate Cusack
- S. Ryan Schmidt
- Urban Bush Women
- Latasha Nevada Diggs
- Karma Mayet Johnson
- Maria Bauman
- Keisha J. Turner
- Marjani Forte
- Catherine Denecy
- Guillermo E. Brown
- Shoko Nagai
- Keith Witty
- The Kitchen
- Yūki Nakajima
- Alexander Delaunay
- Ryan Lee Gallery
- Met Museum
- Friedman Gallery
- Studio museum in harlem
Works in Development:
Radio Imagination: Artists in the Archive of Octavia E. Butler
Residency at the Crossroads
Artists They Recommending:
Sondra Perry
Scratch
Tomashi Jackson
Resource they rely on:
LOVE
Community
The post Ep 3 Mendi + Keith Obadike appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing dancer and choreographer Lela Aisha Jones, whose work infuses her movement with the intellectual and movement traditions of the African diaspora. Find out what led her to her unique and multifaceted form of expression, her favorite recipes, what it means to be the archivist of the body, and more– all while she’s getting ready to teach class! Join us and tune in.
Lela Aisha Jones is a movement performance artist that intertwines personal history, diasporic movement, and social commentary. The foundation of her work is the individual and collective lived experiences of blackness as archived in and excavated from the body through dance. As the founder of her creative home FlyGround she directs her own artistic projects, the Dancing for Justice Philadelphia Initiative, and Requisite Movers Program and Performances. Lela is a 2016 Pew Fellow and also a member of the inaugural 2015 Innovative Cultural TheAdvocacy Fellowship program.
To follow Lela Aisha Jones’ work, the initiatives she’s leading, or to watch her performances visit her website at http://www.flygroundera.com, to be included on her mailing list please email her at flyground@gmail.com
Interested in the daance artists, companies, and projects Lela mentions on the show? Click these links!
- Dancing for Justice (video)
- Dancing for Justice (facebook)
- Margo Blake
- Kulu Mele
- Urban Bush Women
- The People’s Institute For Survival and Beyond
- Deneane Richburg
- Nia Love,
- Marjani Forte
- Dorothy Wilkie
- Onye Ozuzu
- Rize
- Onye Ozuzu
- Guinea Fare
- Sambada
Books To Read:
- M Jaqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing
Artists to check out:
- Leslie Zakiya Cornish
- Jorge Mayet
Favorite resource to rely on:
- Egusi Stew
The post Ep 2 Dancer and Choreographer Lela Aisha Jones appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
POET YOLANDA WISHER
Welcome to the Contemporary Black Canvas podcast! In our first episode, we interview Yolanda Wisher, the 2016-2017 Poet Laureate of the City of Philadelphia. Find out what drew her to poetry, whether she prefers to write in rhyme or free verse, and the secret behind the infamous typewriter–all this and much more! Join us and tune in.
To subscribe to Yolanda’s newsletter, hear selections of her poems, or see her upcoming performance schedule, please visit her website at yolandawisher.com.
In today’s episode, I had the pleasure to speak with poet Yolanda Wisher. Yolanda Wisher has responded to her poetic calling from a very young age. Currently, she’s the 2016-2017 Poet laureate of the city of Philadelphia. Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro and coeditor of Peace is a Haiku Song. Wisher founded and directed the Germantown Poet Festival (2006 to 2010) and she has also served as Director of Art Education for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (2010-2015). She currently works as chief Rhapsodist of Wherewithal for the US Department of Arts and Culture. Join us for a lively conversation about Yolanda Wisher’s response to her poetic calling, the influence of music on her work, and the beauty she finds in putting her experiences to words. To subscribe to Yolanda’s newsletter, hear selections of her poems, or see her upcoming performance schedule, please visit her website yolandawisher.com.
THE PASSPORT TO THE FUTURE: BOOKS TO CHECK OUT
CBC believes in supporting Black bookstores. For ease of reference, we have provided you with Amazon links but please support Black bookstores in your area by purchasing these titles from them.
Alice Walker: Goodnight, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning, Revolutionary Petunias, Once, The Color Purple
Zora Neale Hurston: The Eyes Were Watching God
Ntozake Shange: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
I AM BECAUSE WE ARE: PAYING IT FORWARD
Up and Coming Artist to Support: Irene Mathieu
Resource You Recommend : Hedgebrook
Words to Live By: “You have a gift, use it.”
How Can Our Listeners Support Your Work:
Website: Yolanda Wisher
Facebook: Yolanda Wisher
The post Ep 1. Poet Yolanda Wisher appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.
Welcome to our introductory episode. We are about to release some amazing interviews.
Make sure you subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app!
The post Ep 0 Introducing the Contemporary Black Canvas Podcast and Dr Pia Deas appeared first on Contemporary Black Canvas.