Fund: Global Arts Fund

Cyrée Johnson

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson is a black non-binary essayist and poet currently working towards an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University.

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson is a black non-binary essayist and poet currently working towards an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. They are a Poetry Editor at The Deaf Poets Society, a journal of D/deaf and disabled literature and art. Their writing has appeared in make/shift, bedfellows, and has been accepted into Issue 7 of The Suburban Review. Johnson’s writing considers disability as a cyborg reality, community as a state of shared trauma, and afro-pessimism. Their recent invited speaking engagements include the LGBT and Disability Forum at The White House and CARSS Town Hall at Mother Bethel AME Church.

Be Steadwell

Be Steadwell is a singer songwriter and filmmaker from Washington DC, whose self-produced albums and films feature her earnest lyricism, proud LGBTQI content and unapologetic silliness.

Be Steadwell is a singer songwriter and filmmaker from Washington DC. In her live performances, Be utilizes loop pedal vocal layering and beat boxing to compose her songs on stage. Be’s self-produced albums and films feature her earnest lyricism, proud LGBTQI content and unapologetic silliness. As she pursued her career in music, she began a career in film. Shooting and editing her own music videos, Be combined her love of music with narrative film. In 2014, Be completed an MFA in film from Howard University. Her most recent film, Vow of Silence (2014) received the Howard University Paul Robeson Award (2015), Best Experimental Short at The Black Star Film Festival (2015), Audience Choice Award at QWOCMAP Festival (2015), and was featured at the NYC Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2016, Be was selected to be a Strathmore Artist in Residence and the DC Commission on the Arts awarded Be an artist fellowship. In April 2016, Be took her music to the UK in a five-show tour. She has conducted songwriting, loop pedal and film workshops for LGBTQI youth groups internationally. Be currently tours her music and film internationally.

awQward

awQward is a collective dedicated to the financial sustainability of trans & queer artists of color.

As performers, poet/educator J Mase III & poet/mc/percussionist Vita E. have toured the country and the world. Being featured for their solo work in such publications as Buzzfeed, Colorlines, the New York Times, the Root, the Huffington Post and more, these two together create a powerhouse of words, spit, drums and pure Black Trans Liberation. When these two are not on stage, they spend their days coordinating performances for, and negotiating fair wages for, the artists on the awQward talent roster. awQward being a collective dedicated to the financial sustainability of trans & queer artists of color, these two create a space not just to curate talented performers and orators, but to delve deeply into cooperative economics. In addition to their daily administrative work, these two provide free and low cost consultations to trans & queer artists of color seeking to turn their artistic skills into a workable career, as well as have provided numerous small emergency grants for trans artists of color in crisis.

2017 Global Arts Fund grant funded #BlackTransMagick, a full length show that will travel to LA, New Orleans, DC, New York & Philadelphia.

Annie Gonzaga

Annie Gonzaga is a black, lesbian, mother who grew up in the favela in Salvador Bahia, known as one of the most racist and most dangerous cities for LBTQ people in the world.

Annie Gonzaga is a black, lesbian, mother who grew up in the favela in Salvador Bahia, known as one of the most racist and most dangerous cities for LBTQ people in the world. She is a practitioner of Candomblé and lives in the outskirts of Salvador. About her creative practice, Annie states, “I have been resisting and practicing survival for the last 500 years through all my ancestors who have preceded me.” She began to draw at a young age in response to the overt policing of her community and the violence that surrounded her. Annie states, “through art I can understand myself as whole. I can’t publicly assume my religious identity because the public space is dangerous, nor leave my lesbianism locked in the closet because I can suffer lesbophobia on the street, much less undress my color, to finally be accepted, loved and then love myself. These are identities that are with me all the time and in everything I do. And through artivism I could see myself. To create an epistemology, through our ancestral heritages, is to glimpse the Afrofuturist black identity, diasporic utopia re-cognizing our cosmologies and identities. And all this is what I try to express in my art whether on paper or on a wall.”

Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo/Tamil writer and video artist based in liminal spaces.

Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo/Tamil writer and video artist based in liminal spaces. She works in fiction, memoir, experimental shorts, and video art. Her debut novel, FRESHWATER, is forthcoming from Grove Atlantic in Winter 2018 and her video portrait UDUDEAGU won the Audience Award for Best Short Experimental at the 2014 BlackStar Film Festival. Within her work, Akwaeke is interested in transgressive stories that challenge idealistic perceptions of humanity and examine how people navigate their embodiments. Her practice centers themes of neurodivergence, African faith traditions, loss and loneliness, death, dislocations, and liminal identities.

Rebeca Lane/Somos Guerreras

Lane has participated in many notable festivals and seminars in Central and South America on human rights, feminism and culture of hip-hop.

Eunice Rebeca Vargas (Rebecca Lane) was born in Guatemala City in 1984 amid civil war. Early on, she began researching methods to recover the historical memory of those war years, subsequently becoming an activist for families whose loved ones had been kidnapped or killed by the military government. Through this organization work, she realized that women had less power in leadership and thus she birthed a feminist vision. The theater has always been part of her life; she is currently part of a theater and hip-hop group that created the Eskina (2014) to address violence against youth in marginalized areas of the city, with the use of graffiti, rap, breakdancing, DJing, and parkour. Since 2012, as part of the hip-hop group Last Dose, she began recording songs rap poetry as an exercise. In 2013, she released her EP “Canto” and she began a tour of Central America and Mexico. Lane has participated in many notable festivals and seminars in Central and South America on human rights, feminism and culture of hip-hop. In 2014, she won the Proyecto L contest, which recognizes music that reinforces the right of expression. In addition, she works as a sociologist with several publications and lectures on urban youth cultures and identities and, more recently, on education and its role in the social reproduction of inequality.

She is the founder of Somos Guerreras project that seeks to create opportunities for empowerment and visibility of women in hip-hop culture in Central America. With support from Astraea is, she performed We are Guerreras with Nakury, and Audry Native Funk in 8 cities, from Panamá to Ciudad Juárez to record a documentary about the work of female hip-hop in the region.

*** En Español***

Rebeca Eunice Vargas (Rebeca Lane) nació en la Ciudad de Guatemala en 1984, en medio de una guerra civil. Desde temprano comenzó a investigar métodos para recuperar la memoria histórica de esos años de guerra, subsecuentemente convirtiéndose en activista por las familias cuyos seres queridos habían sido secuestrados o asesinados por el gobierno militar. A través de este trabajo de organización ella se dio cuenta de que las mujeres tenían menos poder en el liderazgo y así nació su visión feminista. El teatro siempre ha sido parte de su vida; ella actualmente forma parte de un grupo de teatro y Hip Hop que creó La Eskina (2014) para abordar la violencia contra la juventud en regiones marginalizadas de la ciudad, con el uso del grafiti, el rap, el breakdance, pinchar discos (deejaying) y el parkour. Desde 2012, como parte del colectivo de Hip Hop, Última Dosis, comenzó a grabar canciones de rap como un ejercicio de poesía. En 2013, salió su EP “Canto” y ella comenzó una gira por Centroamérica y México. Lane ha participado en muchos festivales y seminarios notables en Centroamérica y Suramérica sobre derechos humanos, el feminismo y la cultura del Hip Hop. En 2014, ganó el concurso Proyecto L, el cual reconoce música que refuerza el derecho de expresión. Además, ella trabaja como socióloga con varias publicaciones y da conferencias sobre culturas urbanas e identidades juveniles y, más recientemente, sobre la educación y su rol en la reproducción social de la inequidad.

Es fundadora del proyecto Somos Guerreras que busca generar espacios de empoderamiento y visibilidad de las mujeres en la cultura Hip Hop en Centroamérica. En 2016 con apoyo de Astraea se realizó de Somos Guerreras junto a Nakury, Nativa y Audry Funk por 8 ciudades desde Panamá hasta Ciudad Juárez para grabar un documental sobre el trabajo de las mujeres Hip Hop en la región.

AFRITUDE Laboratorio Creativo Político

AFRITUDE Laboratorio Creativo Político is conceived as a space where the arts and activism are harmonized.

AFRITUDE Laboratorio Creativo Político (Creative Political Lab) is conceived as
a space where arts and activism are harmonized; a co-working safer
space/arts studio for interdisciplinary creation and community based
learning. We dream to become a space for art-led political discussion and
production rooted in struggle that informs and curates Afro-LBTQ messages
for social justice with a black feminist antiracist intersectional emphasis and
approach. AFRITUDE intends to use multiple art disciplines as tools to
produce social commentary through our testimonies and experiences as
black women, lesbians, bisexual, transgender and queer people of African
descent to challenge official-traditional narratives that invisibilize, silence and
oppress these identities in the Dominican Republic. Our artivism production
aimed to provoke conversation to fight and resist racism and colonialism
includes T-shirts, murals, photography, street art, graffiti, ad reclaiming-
intervention, canvas painting, poetry, street theater and audiovisual
installations.

Tourmaline (f.k.a. Reina Gossett) and Sasha Wortzel

Tourmaline (f.k.a. Reina Gossett) and Sasha Wortzel are currently directing Happy Birthday, Marsha! – a narrative short film about best friends and pioneering transgender rights activists, Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, in the hours before the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

Tourmaline (f.k.a. Reina Gossett) is an activist, writer, and artist and the 2014-2016 Activist-In-Residence at Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women. As the membership director at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project from 2010 to 2014, Tourmaline worked to lift the voice and power of trans and gender non-conforming people. Prior to joining the Sylvia Rivera Law Project Tourmaline worked at Queers for Economic Justice where she directed the Welfare Organizing Projected and produced A Fabulous Attitude, which documents low-income LGBT New Yorkers surviving inequality and thriving despite enormous obstacles.

Sasha Wortzel is a filmmaker, media artist, and educator working in video, installation, sound, and performance. Her work explores marginalized collective and personal histories in relation to space, gender, and desire. Her debut feature documentary, WE CAME TO SWEAT premiered at Newfest at the Lincoln Center in July 2014. She has presented work at the Berlin International Film Festival, Outfest LA, Newfest, Tribeca Interactive, Leslie Lohman Museum, A.I.R. Gallery, and the Guggenheim Lab. Her work has been supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and she was a 2012-2013 fellow of filmmaker Ira Sach’s Queer/Art/Mentorship. She received her MFA from Hunter College. With Reina Gossett, she is currently directing Happy Birthday, Marsha! – a narrative short film about best friends and pioneering transgender rights activists, Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, in the hours before the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

Producciones y Milagros Agrupacion Feminista A.C.

They are dedicated to maintaining photographic, graphic, and video documentation of lesbian and feminist social movements and women in Mexico and Latin America.

Producciones y Milagros Agrupación Feminista A.C. is a collective of lesbian feminists who fight against a patriarchal, capitalist, racist and sexist systems. The heart of their work is based on the documentation and creation of images that build and deconstruct feminist memory. They are dedicated to maintaining photographic, graphic, and video documentation of lesbian and feminist social movements and women in Mexico and Latin America (forums, actions, workshops, academic seminars, initiatives, marches, etc.). With the use of video, photography, graphic design, facilities and performance representation, they create their own materials and offer professional support to other groups.

*** En Español***

Producciones y Milagros Agrupación Feminista A.C. es un colectivo de feministas lesbianas que luchan contra un sistema patriarcal, capitalista, racista y sexista. El corazón de su trabajo tiene base en la documentación y creación de imágenes que construyen y deconstruyen la memoria feminista. Se dedica a mantener una documentación fotográfica, gráfica y de video de los movimientos sociales lésbicos feministas y de las mujeres en México y América Latina (foros, acciones, talleres, seminarios académicos, iniciativas, marchas, etc.). Con el uso del video, la fotografía, el diseño gráfico, las instalaciones y la representación del performance, crea sus propios materiales y ofrece apoyo profesional a otros grupos.

Nia Witherspoon

Nia Witherspoon is a multidisciplinary artist-scholar producing work at the intersections of indigeneity, queerness, and African diaspora epistemologies.  Working primarily in the mediums of vocal and sound composition, playwriting, and creative scholarship, Dr. Witherspoon’s work has been recognized and supported by the Mellon Foundation, Theatre Bay Area, and the National Queer Arts Festival. Her original play, The Messiah Complex, is a multi-temporal meditation on the loss of parents in black and queer diasporas. Messiah was performed at New York’s prestigious Downtown Urban Theatre Festival (HERE Art Center) where it received the Audience Award and placed second for Best Play. Witherspoon’s work as a vocalist, both independently and with acclaimed ceremonial-music duo SoliRose, has spanned stages, ceremonial spaces, and activist organizations from the San Francisco Bay Area to Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Beirut, and her creative nonfiction is most recently featured in Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. Witherspoon has forthcoming publications in the Journal of Popular Culture and Women and Performance, and she is currently at work on a book project, “The Nation in the Dark: Reparations of Ceremony in Diaspora,” which asserts that nationalism, far from being dead, is essential to radical women of color re-envisioning indigenous religions. She received a B.A. from Smith College and a PhD from Stanford University.