A Blade of Grass
Fellowship Workshop with Black Quantum Futurism
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
6 to 9pm
[Image Description: A woman dressed in black with a big silver pendant and chain stands in front of a brown podium speaking. There is a spotlight on her and to her left is a woman in a blue shirt with dreadlocks who sits at a table in front of a computer and water bottle. Behind both of them is a projection of an image of a solar system in neon blue, white, and black.]
Fellowship Workshops are designed for our ABOG Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art applicants and include hands-on, interactive approaches to helping artists with their proposals. This workshop began with a short presentation by ABOG Fellows Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips (also known as Black Quantum Futurism), followed by small group workshops to compare excellent examples and troubleshoot how to write effectively about socially engaged art.
About Black Quantum Futurism
Camae Ayewa (left) is a graphic designer, photographer, collage artist, and musician performing as Moor Mother Goddess. She has performed at numerous festivals, colleges and universities, and has produced soundscapes for live theatre as well as book soundtracks. Ayewa is co-founder of Rockers! Philly, a recurring music festival focused on marginalized artists, and frontwoman of punk band The Mighty Paradocs. As a workshop facilitator she works with youth-centered programs, non-profits and shelters. She is the author of the forthcoming book of poetry Fetish Bones.
Rasheedah Phillips (right) is founder of The Afrofuturist Affair, a grassroots community formed in 2011 to celebrate and promote Afrofuturistic and sci-fi concepts and culture through creative events and creative writing. She received a BA in criminal justice in 2005, and a JD in 2008, both from Temple University. She serves on the boards of several community organizations, and is a Managing Attorney for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. She is the author of Recurrence Plot and Other Time Travel Tales (2014).
Working as the Black Quantum Futurism (BQF) collective, Ayewa and Phillips will create through their ABOG Fellowship Community Futurisms: Time & Memory in North Philly, a collaborative art and ethnographic research project that will use Afrofuturism as a critical activist theory and organizing tool in exploring the impact of redevelopment in North Philadelphia, and culminate in the creation of a community-sourced time capsule. Click here to learn more.
Images:
Top - Urban Video Project, Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa present at SPECULATIONS: Science Fiction, Chronopolitics, & Social Change at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, April 2015
Bottom: Artist portrait by Eva Wo