BLACK SHEDDING(S)
In the first phase of Black Shedding(s) curator, Cheyenne Wyzzard-Jones, stewards the story with the following questions: when conjuring a new world what was/is your everyday mundane life? What do you hope for your everyday life to be in this new world? What are stages of Black shedding(s)? What are land responses to Black Sheddings? What are we becoming? And what can no longer exist?
Black Shedding(s) can be discussed alongside the works of shedding light on/in, rebirth, infusing, transmutation, the science of chrysalis, snake medicine used in various different ways within various different spiritual traditions, and to shed free from. It can be discussed amongst those of us who know that [antiracist anticapitalist anticolonial black queer trans feminist] communal practice takes a communal shedding.
A shedding is different from a cleanse, a shedding is a transformation.
MEET THE ARTISTS
Social Media: @xawaashking
Gouled Ahmed
Gouled Abdishakour Ahmed (they/them) is an Addis Ababa based Somali visual artist, stylist, costume designer and writer. Their work explores the themes of memory and belonging through the lens of self portrait photography and self fashioning. Their ongoing self portrait series One Day These Names Will Be Ours explores the gaps that exist within formal language in the understanding, and contextualization of gender expressions that exist outside of the binary. Gouled's work deals with the notion of futurity, and is heavily aimed at envisioning new & equitable aesthetic futures for the Horn of Africa.
Nikesha’s methodologies call upon ancestral memory and archival resurrection to bring to the fore, faces, bodies, stories, and spirits that have been systematically erased from the master narrative. Thier performance art and film work reimagines relationships with the body, the invisible world, and the social space. Originally from Portland, Oregon Nikesha Breeze lives and works in the high desert of New Mexico, she is an American born African Diaspora descendant of the Mende People of Sierra Leone, and Assyrian American Immigrants from Iran.
Social Media: @nikeshabreeze
Nikesha Breeze
Working from a Global African Diasporic, Afro-Centric and Afro-Futurist perspective, Nikesha Breeze’s (they/them) interdisciplinary work reimagines the possibility of healing inter-generational traumatic inheritance through the intersection of art and ritual. Black, Brown, Indigenous, Queer and Earth bodies, material and immaterial, are seen as undeniably sacred and inviolable. Nikesha’s work centers Black bodies, simultaneously existing within realms of past, present, and future. Nikesha uses performance art, film, painting, textiles, sculpture, and site-specific engagement to build a counter-narrative of an Otherwise, where black bodies and ideas are seen as existing in hypervalue, a realm of indivisibility between black artistic aesthetic, black time, and ritual healing. Black pasts become re-informed by Black futures, and the resulting present is experienced as a living altar and artifact.
Social Media: @mythsooka
Mithsuca Berry
Mithsuca Berry is a Haitian artist, educator, and storyteller based currently in Cambridge, MA. Each of their pieces marks an epiphany in their journey of healing trauma - as it relates to existing as a black queer/non-binary person. Art has been the intersection between their broken inner child and intuitive/spiritual self. Their practice serves a role like: How does one create an archive of imagery, recording the complex emotions that surface in their lifetime?
They then sketch/write/RELEASE those examples into the world, for others who resonate to connect with. That places healing within them, but also makes it accessible in places that will exist beyond their work.
Social Media: @kayajoan
Kaya Joan
Kaya Joan (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary Afro -Indigenous artist born, raised and living in T’karonto (Dish with One Spoon treaty territory). Kaya’s work focuses on exploring relationships and responsibility to place and storytelling. Black and Indigenous futurisms and speculative fiction are also themes important to Kaya’s practice, as they map towards futures of abundance and joy for their kin. Kaya has been working in community arts for 7 years as a facilitator and artist, and is a member of Milkweed Collective.
Each piece reflects a period of meditative peace. The practice of meditative art has become a mental and emotional salve, helping to cope with the reality of being born into the carceral states most heavily targeted community. The Artist hopes the work engulfs other people in the same kind of peace that was felt during each work's creation.
Social Media: @zahyr_theartist_lhaz
Zahyr Lauren
Zahyr Lauren (they/them), also known as The Artist L.Haz, is a West Coast- based artist, writer, former human rights investigator, and former attorney. L.Haz began drawing in 2015 after the surmounting stress of being an attorney resulted in a lost ability to walk. The youngest of four siblings, L.Haz comes from a powerful, southern Black matriarchy that migrated from Oklahoma and Mississippi to California with nothing, and made something for generations to come. The he(art)work is at once a dedication to the brilliance, resilience, and beauty of their family, as well as a practice of transforming the trauma of being Black in America so that they do not transmit it.
Social Media: @moore_art332
Michelle Moore
Michelle Moore (she/her) is an animator/ illustrator from Peabody, Massachusetts. Since receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation and Interactive Media in 2017, she has applied her skill sets to animation shorts, indie game assets, comic books, and editorial illustrations. She has always been captivated by animation backgrounds, bursting with color and light from a young age and she strives to create meaningful animations that make people laugh, cry, or think. This world-building inspired her to create more beautiful environments where my characters live and thrive. She predominantly works digitally but paints traditionally as well with mediums such as ink, acrylic paint, and gouache. There are many ways to express oneself, and an artist should not be limited.
Social Media: @k7vonna
Kavonna Smith
With roots throughout Michigan, KTS (she/her/any) is a maker who imagines, believes, and tends to the wonder and power of luv through art. Each piece is her own quiet moment in history where she invites every bit of life that inspires her to an open conversation where all truths and possibilities flow. KTS creates and sees through the lens of dreamers and lovers alike. (occupied Potawatomi, Anishinaabe, Peoria, Meskwaki, Odawa, and Mississauga land)