VIRTUALTARS: Public Screening Reception
Hybrid Exhibit By Jupiter June and Jessi Jumanji
[In-Person]
Manifesto: Throughout history Black people have created unique ways to celebrate our ancestors, this series envisions a future reality in which digital media and altars have merged. Utilizing mediums ranging from collage, motion, and illustration; June and Jumanji predict a new way Black people can celebrate the lives of our community with beauty and honor. “To give a peaceful, celebratory homegoing, it’s the whole idea of a celebration of life,” says Karla F.C. Holloway, a Black woman professor of English, law, and African American studies at Duke University. It’s become part of black burial traditions, she says—even though “it is a contradiction to the ways in which many black bodies come to die.”
Guests will be able to view, meditate, and pray with the altars projected on a large scale at Aziz Gallerie in Leimert Park LA. Paired with ambient and soulful music, guests will also be able to light an incense or candle representing an ancestor they love. Closing the event will be remarks from the artist and a special TBA performance.
COST
Donation Based , Prints for sale
VENMO/PAYPAL/CASHAPP/ZELLE HANDLE
Jupiter June
Jessi Jumanji
AMOUNT CHARGE
RSVP Only Entry
EVENT CAPACITY
50 Guest at a time
“Envisioning how Black and African People honor our ancestors in the future”
Hybrid Exhibit By Jupiter June and Jessi Jumanji
Transmoleculariization. A Sound Building Improvisation Workshop with Sy Shinar
Transmoleculariization. An Improvisation Workshop using the Auto-Physio-Psychic approach to Sound Building
Hosted by Sy Shinar
[In-Person]
This workshop is an improvisation-based exploration through embedded ancestral memory hosted in our bone tissue, or our lacuna. Using Sun Ra’s Transmolecularization theory of sound travel and Yusaf Lateefs method of Auto-Physio-Psychic sound creation, participants will have an opportunity to imagine improvisation in direct relationship to their subconscious understanding of reality.
Skills/Knowledge: Advance
Objectives
● Participants will develop their physical experience of sound through instruments and voice fine-tuning their practice of listening
● Participants will develop a sense of freedom in expression.
● Participants will engage ancestral memory as a psychic relationship activated through
Agenda and Activities: Using sound as material evidence of dimensional existence, group improvisation will become a tool for interrupting and restructuring the molecular makeup of reality through accessing hidden memory.
contact deathviasyanide@gmail.com with more info.
Donation based:
VENMO/PAYPAL/CASHAPP/ZELLE HANDLE:
Venmo: ARACHNID888
Zelle: syxe888@gmail.com
cashapp: $SYXEx3
Paypal: syxe888@gmail.com
EVENT CAPACITY: 10-15 persons
ARTIST BIO:
SYANIDE is a sound artist, producer and DJ living in BK. Since their debut Boiler Room set in 2019 they have quickly gained traction in NYC underground nightlife, developing a sound that questions function of form through experimental music. Their work has been featured with Issue Project Room, Make Techno Black Again, And ESS Chicaco Quarantine Concerts.
@deathvia (IG)
Sensually Speaking with Kalyn Jacobs
Sensually Speaking: Exploring Sensuality & Sexual Liberation For Masc. Identifying Queer People
Hosted by Kalyn Jacobs
[In-Person]
The world of sexual wellness is largely seen as a predominantly femme space; And by no means is that a negative critique but a concerned observation. We live in a world where visibility changes the course of people’s lives and it’s important for people to be able to see themselves and hear stories from those like them when it comes to navigating a subject so vulnerable and intimate. Sensually Speaking is an incubator space, soon to be podcast, inviting masculine identifying queer people to discuss body acceptance, the relationship between vulnerability and pleasure, and explore the concepts of sensual and sexual liberation and what that journey looks like for each individual. This space is open to all who is interested in coming, but very intentionally centers those that identify as masculine presenting. There will be time set aside towards the end for all to comment and ask questions.
Through a series of prompted questions, the objective of the discussion is to offer a safe space for people to share their experiences and self-care practices in navigating sensuality. A Self Check-In worksheet will be provided for the group to allow each individual a personal moment of reflection in regards to their sensual self. This worksheet also serves as a keepsake from the event for people to reference as they as continue their sensual journeys in life.
This event would be most effective in-person at the Matka studio due to its intimate subject matter, however, should the current Covid 19 surge carry into the end of February, this event is fully prepared to be shifted into the virtual space via zoom.
EVENT CAPACITY
25
SHORT ARTIST BIO
Kalyn Jacobs is anFilmmaker and Photographer from Chicago, IL. A graduate of Howard University, Kalyn began her career as Camera Operatir for Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Rainbow Push Coalition and working as a PA on film and TV productions in Chicago. After moving to New York in 2017, Kalyn word
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/WEBSITE LINKS
http://kalynjacobs.com/
https://www.instagram.com/_kjacobs/
Transmoleculariization. An Improvisation Workshop using the Auto-Physio-Psychic approach to Sound Building with SYANIDE
Hosted by SYANIDE
[In-Person]
This workshop is an improvisation-based exploration through embedded ancestral memory hosted in our bone tissue, or our lacuna. Using Sun Ra’s Transmolecularization theory of sound travel and Yusaf Lateefs method of Auto-Physio-Psychic sound creation, participants will have an opportunity to imagine improvisation in direct relationship to their subconscious understanding of reality.
Skills/Knowledge: beginner
Objectives
● Participants will develop their physical experience of sound through instruments and voice fine-tuning their practice of listening
● Participants will develop a sense of freedom in expression.
● Participants will engage ancestral memory as a psychic relationship activated through
Agenda and Activities: Using sound as material evidence of dimensional existence, group improvisation will become a tool for interrupting and restructuring the molecular makeup of reality through accessing hidden memory.
contact deathviasyanide@gmail.com with more info.
Donation based:
VENMO/PAYPAL/CASHAPP/ZELLE HANDLE:
Venmo: ARACHNID888
Zelle: syxe888@gmail.com
cashapp: $SYXEx3
Paypal: syxe888@gmail.com
EVENT CAPACITY: 10-15 persons
ARTIST BIO:
SYANIDE is a sound artist, producer and DJ living in BK. Since their debut Boiler Room set in 2019 they have quickly gained traction in NYC underground nightlife, developing a sound that questions function of form through experimental music. Their work has been featured with Issue Project Room, Make Techno Black Again, And ESS Chicaco Quarantine Concerts.
@deathvia (IG)
GOOD VIBRATIONS with Vinyl Social Club NYC
Hosted by Kaila and Margo
[In-Person]
Good Vibrations is an open spin vinyl event hosted by Vinyl Social Club focusing on the theme of afrofuturism. Vinyl Social Club is a collective of vinyl collectors and general music lovers who come together to share their love for music, simply put. With this event, we want to pay homage to black musicians, past and present, that have broken down barriers with innovative sounds that have transcended time. Afrofuturism in music is subjective, we want attendees to show us their personal definition or interpretation of afrofuturism with their vinyl selections. We want to create a space where participants feel comfortable with sharing the music they listen to.
EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
I. Vinyl Swap
Guests that attend the event are welcome to bring vinyls that they can swap with others.
II. Open Spin
We encourage participants to come and play a vinyl set. We welcome people who attend to bring their own vinyls to spin, and ask that they focus their set around the idea of afrofuturism, whatever that may mean to them. We will have a sign up sheet at the event (or prior to) for those who would like to spin where they can select a time that best works for them. Ideally we’ll have about 9 selectors with sets of about 20 minutes per person. It does not matter your skill level. Whether you are a beginner or an expert at spinning vinyl, everyone is welcome to spin!
CONCLUSION
Overall this event is meant to connect attendees through music by giving them the opportunity to showcase their love for music and be exposed to various artists who fall into the umbrella of afrofuturism.
email vinylsocialclubnyc@gmail.com for more info
Scoring for Film with Suzi Analogue
[Virtual]
Join us for a chat with Suzi Analogue, Suzi Analogue is a prolific Producer, Songwriter, Composer, Member Of The Recording Academy / Grammys & Creator Of Never Normal Records based in Miami, FL. She is energetically pioneering the new wave of women producers in electronic music & beyond.
On Friday, Feb 25th at 7:00pm we dive into the process of scoring film and the intersections between music and cinema. We will discuss Suzi’s latest collaboration with Director Melina Matsoukas and Calvin Klein.
Future Histories: Preserving Black Intimacies in Conversation and Sound
Hosted by Tafari Robertson
[In-Person & Virtual]
Exploring Oral Histories as a creative method through conversational audio collaging with Black book spaces.
We will listen to audio of a conversation with owners of a Black bookstore in Fort Worth, Texas, working together to identify Black cultural elements and uniquely audible intimacies present in the recording. Then, We will discuss oral history as a creative method and how we can utilize art spaces to make Black voices and experiences into historical authorities exploring the question of how artists participate in the creation of future histories inspired by ethnographic practices of Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cauleen Smith, Sun-Ra, and more.
Donation Based
VENMO/PAYPAL/CASHAPP/ZELLE HANDLE
Venmo: @tafari-robertson
Cashapp: $tafariro
EVENT CAPACITY: 20
ARTIST BIO
Tafari Robertson is a multidisciplinary artist and speculative futurist based in Philadelphia, originally from Austin, Texas. He works across mediums to explore the intricacies of Blackness and its potential futures. As a Speculative Futurist, he centers his practice in imagining new worlds and how to make them possible. Rooted in a passion for community, history and media, he aims to leave something behind not only for present engagement but for the use of future generations in understanding unspoken or unquestioned cultural moments.
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/WEBSITE LINKS
Instagram: @tafaridiop
Website: Tafaridiop.com
BSF Virtual Film Screening/Discussion
Hosted By Imani Nikyah
[Virtual] Link provided upon RSVP
Nuotama Frances Bodomo is a Ghanaian filmmaker, writer and director.
Nutoama Budomo’s Everybody Dies is a public access tv show in which ripa the (grim) reaper teaches black kids about the day they'll die.
Healing the Black Body is an offering to create, build, and practice healing and liberation in Black Queer and Trans Communities through performance, Black Feminism, and Movement. We offer performance rituals, youth leadership cultivation, and cultural organizing to make worlds and create futures of Black Freedom.
Healing the Black Body is a three part community building and cultural organizing offering for Black queer and trans communities, including our Youth Fellowship, our Community Ritual and our Performance Rituals. The entire cohort of Fellows debuted their first Performance Ritual in the spring of 2019, and their second in December 2020. Their second performance ritual - ‘warm, that’s how it began’ is a film edited by Muse Dodd.
A Speculative Futurists Guide to Administrative World Building with Tafari Robertson
Hosted by Tafari Robertson
[Virtual]
Participants will work together to imagine the mundanities of a Black future utopia and the forms of documentation that may become necessary.
Based on my documents, The Post Relationship Self-Evaluation form and Hotep Registration form, Participants will work together to imagine the mundanities of a Black future utopia and the forms of documentation that may become necessary. We will talk about the conceptual practice of current systems of documentation, surveillance, and authority. Exploring how art and humor can function to destabilize them, participants will be made authorities in their own future or present communities following the destruction of our current societies and be tasked with the preemptive imagining of a new mundane.
THIS IS A DONATION BASED EVENT
Venmo: @tafari-robertson
Cashapp: $tafariro
EVENT CAPACITY
20
SHORT ARTIST BIO
Tafari Robertson is a multidisciplinary artist and speculative futurist based in Philadelphia, originally from Austin, Texas. He works across mediums to explore the intricacies of Blackness and its potential futures. As a Speculative Futurist, he centers his practice in imagining new worlds and how to make them possible. Rooted in a passion for community, history and media, he aims to leave something behind not only for present engagement but for the use of future generations in understanding unspoken or unquestioned cultural moments.
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/WEBSITE LINKS
Instagram: @tafaridiop
Website: Tafaridiop.com
A(notation(s)): Resignation, Labor and Irregularities with Akeema-Zane
A(notation(s)) is a virtual workshop and hotline that examines and documents labor relations and views.
The Dream Chamber Sound Portal: Priestess of Twerk Pop Up by Isis (aka Nia Witherspoon) + Dreemy
Hosted by Isis (aka Nia Witherspoon) + Dreemy
[In-Person]
In the Dream Chamber Portal, participants will be guided by a tapestry of sounds from Africa and the diaspora, as well as galaxy sonifications, black feminist sacred text, ambient music, and breathwork to release and let go of the “wokeness” and hypervigilance that often plagues us, and drop into our dreaming and visioning practice, guided by our ancestors and higher selves. After experiencing this sound journey, which will need to take place either live or virtually in sacred space (we are going for live, but can pivot to virtual if necessary), participants will go through an Amplifying closing, where we share our dreams aloud in a context of Black love + support, towards their clarification, reflection, reverberation, and manifestation. It is possible that after this experience, we will share a brief set of music to release all that we have called up into the universe. We have conceived of this experience on a Sunday to tap into the ideation of Sunday as a sacred day, and see this work as operating as both service + sermon to nourish our people before the start of the week.
![Accountability Spaces with TCHHNNH [Virtual]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e1dbcacd2f91a7c07cf32e2/1642480513493-5HUB7PP4XCDPKKIQR1K3/ACCOUNTABILITY+WORKSHOP+-+GRID.png)
Accountability Spaces with TCHHNNH [Virtual]
Hosted by tochifatima of TCHHNNH
[Virtual]
A continuous wellness journey centering self-discovery & self-care through intentional experiences that allow you to meet your best selves.
What is the event?
An introductory breakdown of what it looks like to create self-made incubators for your goals to grow and flourish. We’re here to guide through your success because you deserve to accomplish your goals.
Donation-based:
VENMO/PAYPAL/CASHAPP/ZELLE HANDLE
Venmo: tochifatima
Cashapp: tochifatima
Zelle: (315) 708 - 2504
ARTIST BIO
T C H H N N H is a continuous wellness journey centering self-discovery & self-care through intentional experiences that allow you to meet your best selves.
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/WEBSITE LINKS
tochi’s IG: @/tochifatima
TCHHNNH’s IG: @/TCHHNNH
TCHHNNH’s Twitter: @/TCHHNNH
WILLIE the GENIUS presents: “Hot Sauce & Honey
Hosted by Willie the Genius
[Virtual]
This event will feature a music performance featuring WILLIE the GENIUS and their band “Dat Damn Band aka The Melanin Orchestra” performing songs from their upcoming EP “Hot Sauce & Honey”.
Tentative Run of Show:
6:00 pm - Crew Call Time & set up
7:00 pm - Talent Call Time
7:30 pm - 8:00 pm : Sound Check
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm : Opening Act
9:00 pm - 10:00 pm : WILLIE the GENIUS Performance
10:00 pm - 11:00 pm : tear down & load out
ARTIST BIO
WILLIE the GENIUS is an unapologetic Afro-Queer performing artist and community resource advocate from Houston, Texas currently residing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY who creates radical revolutionary art. WILLIE served as a member of the 2021 Transjustice Community School cohort of the Audre Lorde Project. As an artist-in-resident at the People’s Theatre Project, WILLIE the GENIUS is currently producing, writing, and starring in their solo theatre and late-night talk show, “WILLIE GETS NAKED!” and planning an off-Broadway debut Fall 2022 as well as in pre-production of their scripted comedy-drama series “Will of Fortune”.
Black Viscosities: blackness, freeness and flow in the digital realm with Amina Ross
Hosted by Amina Ross
[VIRTUAL]
“The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate.”
How are black artists working in time-based media using representations of fluid, liquid, and water to accumulate resistance? To flow more freely?
Water flowing freely in the context of an ocean, or a lake is a part of a natural cycle, seamlessly shifting between states of liquid, solid, and gas. Water flowing freely in a house, once it transgresses its casing, is threatening. A leak can take down a whole building, silently over time. Its low viscosity lends itself to a fast-paced rushing, it’s hard to contain.
The rushing waters of a shower clear the body’s pathways, free up the spirit. Water in a bath or in a clear vessel on a table is a conduit, a healer, a connective technology.
Rushing waters are hard to resist.
This screening, meditation, and conversation invites artists & friends to explore the effects of water in the context of digital worlds through sound and video. These artists use water, its histories, and its metaphors to talk about power and the transformation of societal and internal structures.
Enter the Gutter: A Deep Dive Into Gutter Water Poetry by MLT (luxlun)
Enter The Gutter: A Deep Dive Into Gutter Water is a recurring poetry discussion fueled by Gutter Water,
a succinct chapbook divided into two parts “Gutter” and “Water”. The human experience is a glimmering
doozie but we are often too busy living it to see it. “Gutter” is a boulder of a stop sign beckoning us to fully
examine ourselves. It is only after we face ourselves and our shadows that we may transmute them.
“Water” teaches us the art of transmutation through surrender. As we Enter The Gutter we embark on this
alchemic journey as a community. We read the selected poems aloud and dissect them and ourselves.
Members of the audience are encouraged to take up space as we venture together into the furthest corners
of our minds and souls. There we reclaim our power as sentient beings and find solace and understanding
amongst each other.
BSF Virtual Film Screening/Discussion
Hosted By Imani Nikyah
[Virtual]
Free
In "Black Lady Goddess", a satirical Afrofuturistic series set in the year 2040, humans have discovered that God is a Black woman, and reparations of $455,000 have been issued to each person of African descent. In this brave new world, a young activist, Ifeoma Johnson, comes into her own. Black Lady Goddess is heavily inspired by the creation stories of the Dogon Tribe, an ancient tribe living in Mali, West Africa. For decades this tribe has mystified modern-day scientists who have a hard time explaining how the Dogon tribe’s precise and ancient kknowledge of the cosmos was centuries ahead of the knowledge of “the great” Western Astronomers. In many cases their assertions about the cosmos were only proven by advances in quantum physics in the early 20th century. The Dogon tribe credit their advance knowledge of astronomy to information given to them by an alien race called the Nommos who visited earth many years ago. They originated from the Sirius B star, which is where the kingdom of Black Lady Goddess resides.
Director: Chelsea Odufu is an award winning Nigerian, Guyanese and American filmmaker who fuses her passion for culture and Afrofuturism to highlight the uniqueness of underrepresented groups on screen.
badheadgoodbrain Performed by Matt Raybeam & Picasso Moore
Performed By: Matt Raybeam & Picasso Moore
Facilitated By: DonChristian
[Virtual]
Join Picasso Moore & Matt Raybeam for a Zoom event meditating on the fourth wall and the rise of media-induced psychosis. Featuring essay readings, an audio visual presentation, and a Q&A moderated by multidisciplinary artist DonChristian, Picasso and Matt Raybeam will explore stand out articulations of the fourth wall in art, media, academia, and literature.
ARTIST BIO:
PICASSO MOORE is a writer, artist, filmmaker, and social creative exploring blackness, queerness, social performance, zeitgeist, and the perpetual quest for autonomy. His written work has been published by The Tenth Magazine, Pin-Up Magazine, Gayletter Magazine, Medium, MOBI, and in the anthology book Our Light Through Darkness. His sculptural work has been exhibited at The MoMA as part of their In The Making showcase for emerging artists and “C E N T E R”, the short film he directed and co-wrote, screened at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Picasso lives in New York City, can't keep a man, and feels that this (among other things) is all Sarah Jessica Parker’s fault. Picasso is ½ of the podcast badheadgoodbrain.
MATT RAYBEAM is a BlaQueer American multidisciplinary gospel artist whose work explores Black queer aesthetics, relationships, and sanity using American letters via poetry, essay, music, stand-up comedy, video, and live presentation/installation. Matthew was born, lives, and works in Bedford Heights, Ohio. They earned an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School in New York City. Matthew is a recipient of LAMBDA Literary Emerging Writers Fellowship, and has participated in Cave Canem, Winter Tangerine Review, and Kent State Poetry Center writing workshops. Matthew’s writing is featured in BOMB Magazine, Racebaitr, Juked Poetry, Our Light Through Darkness Anthology, Emerge: 2019 Lambda Fellows Anthology, and other publications. They have presented work across the U.S. and internationally including: Hollywood City Hall, Pratt Institute, and Godsbanen Museum. MOBIfest 2018, Matthew co-presented their experimental short film A Study of Him. Summer 2021, released mixtape F****T RADIO: The Death Tape, and is on the cover of T Magazine’s 2021 September Men’s Fashion Issue. Matthew is ½ of the podcast badheadgoodbrain.
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/ WEBSITE LINKS:
Instagram & Twitter: @picassomoore
Instagram & Twitter: @mattraybeam
THIS IS A DONATION-BASED EVENT
Suggested donation of $10 - tips very appreciated
Cashapp: $picassomoore
Venmo: picassomoore
Black Trance: movement meditation for quieting the noise and integrating the messages with angel edwards
Hosted by angel edwards
[Virtual]
Black Trance is a movement workshop for the purpose of integration. listening to one's inner voice, inner values, and desires. When we are silent we are able to receive, when we are moving/sweating we are activating our bones, our flesh. We can conjure messages that stem from our learnings, personal experiences, questions, and curiosities. We can also be in the absence and the blackness of not knowing or thinking or dreaming in any particular direction. The trance as a resting place; deep embodiment as a rest place.
The beginning of this workshop will be introductions, physical and mental body check ins about needs, desires and boundaries. Then we will move into a slowly guided movement exploration (I will lead with my voice and instrumental sounds) I’m interested in a space that centers non-verbal communications, (especially during the movement meditation) Prioritizing silence and quiet, while also encouraging more guttural nonsense sounds (moaning, mumbling, laughing, singing, etc)
We will close out gently by sharing what came up (only if desired) and drawing an intuitive map of our experience. Directions for once the workshop is over.
This event is donation based [0-20$]:
Venmo: @shanel-edwards-1
PayPal: shaneledwards321@gmail.com
zelle: 484-705-9880
Cashapp: $shaneledwardsart
EVENT CAPACITY
Infinite!
ARTIST BIO
angel shanel edwards is a tender flame, a blackqueerandtrans first-gen Jamaican / Philly rooted healer. Through movement channeling, laying hands on scalps, witnessing through photography, tender poetics, and filmmaking, they compass towards liberation and abundance. angel is committed to healing their wounds by listening to smoke, water, the earth, their ancestors, themselves, and community. angel cultivates black queer and trans brilliance and community everyday. They hold this quote by genius Gwendolyn Brooks: “we are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/WEBSITE LINKS
@angeledwardsart
Angeledwardsart.com
Valentine’s Day Zine Making Workshop (Virtual) with Neta Bomani
-Registration Closed-
Hosted by Neta Bomani
[Virtual]
Donation based: cashapp: $netabomani or venmo @netanoir.
Come celebrate Valentine’s Day by spending time making zines and contemplating love. Zines are the perfect tool for creative and political expression. Zines can function as letters of love to crushes, friends, lovers, family members, significant others, ancestors, partners and community; or letters of grievance, disappointment and heartbreak when systems fail, relationships end, people pass away, and so on.
As we continue to struggle living through a pandemic—in and out of isolation, spiritually drained, and starved for connection with inadequate support from the government…bell hooks reminds us that “when we choose to love we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.”
We invite those who choose love to come as they are to this workshop. Together we will learn basic zine making techniques with a special Valentine’s Day twist and prompts to fill your zine with love. You will need: paper; binding materials like staples and a stapler or needle and embroidery thread; a cutting instrument like a scissors or an exacto knife; writing instruments like colorful pens and markers; and your imagination.
About workshop facilitator: Neta Bomani is an abolitionist, learner and educator who is interested in parsing information and histories while making things by hand with human and non-human computers. Neta’s work combines archives, oral histories, computation, social practices, printmaking, paper engineering, zine making and workshops to create do it yourself artifacts. Neta received a graduate degree in Interactive Telecommunications from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Neta is currently an Instructor in the Collaborative Arts Department at New York University. Neta is also a co-director of the School for Poetic Computation. Neta has studied under Mariame Kaba, American Artist, Simone Browne, Ruha Benjamin, Fred Moten and many others who inform Neta’s work.
email: netanyabomani@gmail.com
Love Spells: Meditations on Black Love with Helen
Facilitated by Helen
[In-Person & Virtual]
This Black Futurist month, we’ll travel through time and space to arrive at Venus - the planet of Love and Beauty. What would the world look like if we truly loved ourselves and each other? How can we make love a popular movement? These are the questions we will explore together as we engage in collective ritual through a guided meditation and altar building. We will be guided to explore the infinite possibilities of self-love, as the well we pull from to nourish romantic love, community love, earth love, and interplanetary love. The space will draw elements from Afrodiasporic religion, astrology/astronomy, and the revolutionary writings of bell hooks, Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin and Toni Cade Bambara among others.
Video art and guided meditation by Helen. Venus birth chart readings by Ke’Ron. This is a collective ceremony, we ask that you participate by wearing red and bringing an object to contribute to the altar that symbolizes love to you<333
workshop capacity: 20
Objectives:
Participants will engage in collective ritual and meditation to access divine love within themselves and each other
Participants will become immersed in the spiritual and political implications of Black love
Healing space and imagery to refuel us as a counter response to oversaturation of images of death and violence in the past few years
Participants will leave feeling less lonely and more hopeful
Components:
Love Altar: initially built by me & then participants will be asked to bring objects to contribute
Guided Meditation over an ambient mix (kinda like this but without original music)
Video Art Projections: experimental video art set to diasporic Black music & revolutionary audio bites
Love Letter Writing: to ourselves, friends, family, lovers etc *
Venus Birth Chart Readings by Ke’Ron *
DONATION-BASED OR SLIDING SCALE
donation-based
Zelle: 786.419.1111
Venmo: @orangemoooon
AMOUNT CHARGE
Whatever your heart desires
ARTIST BIO
Helen Peña is a Dominican-American daughter of the Atlantic, culture worker, filmmaker and community organizer from Miami, FL. She uses filmmaking, video art and storytelling as forms of healing and collective ritual. Her art focuses on women's relationship to the natural world, for subsistence and spiritual practice, weaving afro-diasporic religion with revolutionary theory, the spiritual and the material, reworking the myths and stories told to awaken solidarity within us.
In 2017, Helen co-founded (F)empower, a collective of queer feminist artist-activists, where she co-led a bail fund, a community garden, a queer Caribbean diasporic party, and more. For 2 years, Helen worked in Digital Communications for racial justice organization, the Dream Defenders. While there, she used art to amplify political organizing. In 2020, Helen participated in the UCLA Luskin Institute’s Sanctuary Spaces Residency, where she worked on her first short film, When Angels Speak of Love, a ritual portrait of a formerly incarcerated Black queer woman.
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/WEBSITE LINKS
IG: @orange.mooon
Erotic Processing // virtual talk + workshop with Toluwanimi Obiwole
Let’s explore the concept of “ the erotic” and it’s relationship to data processing. How can we arrange the data we carry to live our most satisfied and pleasurable lives? We’ll talk about data types and structuring as it applies to programming then use those same concepts in analogy to our human databases and how we heal them.
Sacrum & Resurrection - improv movement workshop with Aminah "Cookie" Ibrahim
Hosted by Aminah "Cookie" Ibrahim
[Virtual]
*Sacrum & Resurrection is a free/donation-based event, make all donations to Venmo @q8ami
Sacrum & Resurrection is an embodiment workshop focused on improvised movement, sensuality in subtlety, and sacral release to find freedom of expression in the spine, especially in the hips and root. Many faiths and cultures believe that the sacrum is the seat of the soul, the bone of resurrection when the end has come, so let’s open our portals and activate transformation. We will be using scarves as a prop to aid movement and as adornment to tie around the hips, so have a couple of scarves in various sizes to play with.
EVENT CAPACITY
15 participants
ARTIST BIO
Aminah Ibrahim is a Black American, Kuwaiti, Indonesian artist, archivist, and creative researcher raised in Kuwait and based in NYC.
Through meditative modes of improvisation and an intimate relationship with ritual garb and adornment, Aminah explores the body as spiritual instrument through somatic movement, sound, and visual documentation. Finding space in flesh, performances and movement explorations are rituals of offering, an embodied contemplation towards freedom and abstraction to build portals for new mythologies, with custom garb and sound scores annotating this body language.
SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE/ WEBSITE LINKS
@tendermountain https://www.instagram.com/tendermountain/
www.aminahibrahim.net
contact aminahaibrahim@gmail.com for more info
Black Journal: Film Screening + Live Performances with Amani
Curated by Amani
[In-Person]
BSF & Amani collaborate to host a film screening accompanied by live performances. The screening will be of several episodes from The Black Journal, a television series that "presented news segments and documentaries pertaining to the Black community and interviews with Black intellectuals, politicians, activists, entertainers, and athletes as part of its mission to display non-stereotyped presentations of what it meant to be Black in America." (On Air from 1968 - 1977)
Artists:
Zamy Maa
Crosslegged
Keenyn Omari
BSF Virtual Film Screening/Discussion
Hosted By Imani Nikyah
[Virtual]
Donation Based
Film #1: Rraine Hanson’s Surrealistic Exploration of the Femmunity inspired by Yoruba Folklore
Rraine Hanson’s Surrealistic Exploration of the Femmunity inspired by Yoruba Folklore.
A young Jamaican girl discovers the origins of her community, a collective of human trafficking victims who found refuge in near future Kingston through divine intervention.
(medium: digital, 16mm, animation)
Director: Rraine Hanson is a Jamaica raised poet, designer, and filmmaker who works primarily in the art department with a goal of creating productive representations of people of color.
Film #2: curation is care. (unfinished) by Ajay Ram
‘curation is care. (unfinished)’ is a discussion Ajay Ram had with his mom on her relationship with cinema as both a child of Harlem in the 1950s, and a public school teacher of the South Bronx in the 1970s.
Ajay Ram is a non binary filmmaker and musician from The Bronx, NY. They’re also the co-founder and lead programmer of Upside Film Festival, a nomadic microcinema based in Harlem. As a kid, Ajay dreamed of being a theme park designer, and that chaotic imagination is what they’ve carried into their art. Inspired by Kathleen Collins, John Carpenter, Missy Elliott, and Nora Ephron, Ajay aspires to create cinema that explores both the gooey textures of the unknown and the tender interiority of Blackness. Film as a quantum gumbo. Storytelling as a vessel for their aunties’ memoirs.
BSF Bookclub 1st virtual gathering with Imani Nikyah
Hosted by Imani Nikyah
[Virtual]
This is the second meeting of the BSF Bookclub. *Registering here will register you for all remaining BSF Bookclub meetings*
Tintype Portraiture Workshop with Adam Davis
Hosted by Adam Davis
[In-Person]
Artist & Educator, Adam Davis, will be hosting a tintype portraiture workshop in Los Angeles at Black owned and operated community arts organization St. Elmo Village on February 7th from 1pm to 5pm. The workshop will be held in person with a 15 person capacity on a first come first served basis due to space and material constraints. The attendance of Black folx will be prioritized when sign ups are open and financial contributions are welcomed from non-Black communities looking to support the artist and the Black Magic project. Visit www.blackmagic.show for more details about the project.