Black Creatives Revival
April 30th-May 2nd, 2021
Hybrid: Virtual & In-person
BLACK CREATIVES REVIVAL CENTRALIZES BLACK ARTS POWER IN NORTH CAROLINA
A New Collective of Black Artists & Creatives Call for Community & Revival
Black arts leaders from across the state of North Carolina came together as an organizing cohort in March and April of this year to co-create a new, annual, three-day “revival” for renewal in community building; a revival after isolation.
The Black Creatives Revival (BCR) aims to centralize Black artists and art leaders from around the state of North Carolina in order to connect, build community, centralize Black power, strengthen our arts communities and collectively reflect the inequities of the arts. The three day revival will accomplish this through resource and skill sharing, identifying expertise, fostering mentoring relationships and gathering shared language around equity in the arts, as well as building a space for healing. Central to all of the elements of the revival are radical thought, artistic expression, art activism, critical conversations and making commitments to consistently return to one another.
The revival is a Black and POC autonomous space. Black cultural workers, artists, art administrators, curators, students, organizers and magic makers of all kinds are welcome. Indigenous People, Brown People and other People of color who are in these fields are also included. Institutional and individual white allies will be identified and mapped by participants of the Black Creatives Revival for involvement in future actions and programming.
BCR is a free series of both virtual and face to face social distanced gatherings taking place the first weekend of May (Friday, April 30th; Saturday, May 1st; Sunday, May 2nd). The organizing cohort consists of April Parker, Debbie The Artist, Antoine Williams, J. Andrew Speas, Karen Archia, Jordan Booker-Medley and Jordan T. Robinson. The cohort will continue to convene and build throughout the year and is committed to hosting the Black Creatives Revival annually.
Individuals interested in getting involved are invited to register online at bit.ly/blackgso.
Elsewhere is providing financial sponsorship and additional support to the organizing artist cohort and the Black Creatives Revival. Other historically white art organizations encouraged to support this event and participate in related future antiracism actions and meetings. Individual donations and sponsorship are very welcome - follow the button below to designate your donation to Black Creatives Revival.
For additional information and registration needs/questions, please contact Arts Administrator in Residence, April Parker, at 336-686-5971 or email aprilparker@goelsewhere.org.
Black Creatives Revival Schedule
Friday, April 30th, 5:30-7:00PM
Street Art Gallery - 316 Lees Chapel Rd., Greensboro, NC
Join us for a socially distanced gathering to meet and network with fellow artists and creatives, facilitated by Jordan Booker- Medley, Jordan T. Robinson, Karen Archia & April Parker
Refreshments will be served.
Friday, April 30th, 7:30-9:00PM
Virtual (register for Zoom link)
Art to feed the soul and spark our conversations, facilitated by Jordan Booker-Medley
Short-film screening and facilitated conversation with the artist and filmmaker, Monet Marshall www.monetnoellemarshall.com/prophesy-short- film
10-minute music break: Debbie the Artist www.soundcloud.com/debbie-long-4
Artist talk with Karen Archia of Public Art Practice www.karenarchia.com
10-minute music break: Debbie the Artist
Saturday, May 1st, 1:00-4:00PM
Virtual (register for Zoom link)
Power Mapping, facilitated by April Parker and Antoine Williams - attendees will utilize digital tools to participate in the real-time power- mapping of individuals and institutions across the state, to be called into supporting this work.
Show & Tell - all attendees are invited to upload examples of their work and inspiration to share.
Storytelling with the NC Black Artists for Liberation (ncblackliberation.com/) – Learn about the organization's foundations and their call for change in arts organizations across the state
Sunday, May 2nd, 4:00-6:00PM
Heather Hart’s The Porch Project: Black Lunch Tables - NW corner of Arlington St. and E. Bragg St.
Dialogue and collaborative art-making as our collective response to the Black Lives Matter movement, facilitated by J. Andrew Speas & Jordan Booker-Medley
For additional information and registration needs/questions, please contact Arts Administrator in Residence, April Parker, at 336-686-5971 or email aprilparker@goelsewhere.org.
Auxilliary and Related Programming
Saturday May 1, 9:30a-12:30p
Bring your wheels – bike, trike, or skate – and come to ride the new section of the Downtown Greenway. Check-in at the Greenway tent at the corner of Murrow & Gate City Blvd. Stop at tents along the way for bike safety info, free giveaways, and kids activities, and eat at participating businesses. Map of Downtown Greenway and participating organizations will be given out at the Greenway tent. We encourage you to bike to the Historic Magnolia House for brunch!
Saturday May 1, 7:30p-8:30p (Virtual)
https://www.facebook.com/scrapplenet Scrapmettle Theater debuts their new work, "Distanced," on Facebook Live. This is their first performance with the community since the onslaught of the virus that held the people of the world at a distance. Their team of writers, actors, and directors, took this opportunity to examine the theater-making experience under the microscope where Covid-19 touches us and helps us look at ourselves at a distance. More info at scrapmettle.net/next-up/distanced2021
Wednesday May 5, 6p – Babe City Rollout
Weekly Meet-Up for all Babes on bikes, roller- skates, strollers, wheels, and walking! Catch us outside, join us at the corner of Arlington & Bragg Street at the Black Lunch Tables. A Gathering led by badass Black womXn, and femmes
Weekly starting Saturday May 16, 1:30p-3:30p Invisible Institution Presents: Sunday Sermon Series
An outdoor cherch experience. Weekly we will host the community and a keynote (unannounced) will deliver a word. We hope to sankofa the experience of the black church as its origins began outdoors in many cases, during enslavement, making it the Invisible Institution. We hope to create a spiritual space, rooted in black joy and inclusivity.
Mask required. Feel free to bring instruments, blankets or chairs. Come as you are and join us:
Starting May 16, 2021 & Every Sunday through Black August | 1:30-3:30pm
Corner of Bragg St & Arlington Ave
Site of the Porch Project: Black Lunch Table. Sponsored by Elsewhere Museum
2021 Organizing Artists Cohort
April Parker
April Parker is a cultural worker and architect of black spaces using public scholarship, radical librarianship, performance art and direct action. As a community organizer and archivist April centers the lives, histories, legacies, resiliency and magic of queer and trans Black people; while working exhaustively at the intersections of social justice movements to create opportunities for institutional accountability, intergenerational relationship building and creative expressions of resistance. April is a black queer femme, a revolutionary mama and a twin. Her heart work of grassroots organizing emphasizes the liberation and prosperity of Black folks. Parker drives movements forward, agitating public discourse to address systemic oppression and institutional racism to uplift Blackness.
Since 2011 April’s been at the forefront and front lines in Greensboro, serving as a founding member of Black Lives Matter Gate City, Trans Kindred Emergency Fund & Trans Reparations Project, NC Queer TROUBLMakers, Queer People of Color Collective of the Triad (QPOCC) as well as the Anti-Racist White Folks and Bayard Rustin Center LGBTQ Symposium.
April’s organizing credits include Juneteenth Jamboree, Black Power Town Hall, Black Girls, and Women Matter Town Hall, #SayHerName Defend Black Womanhood, Midnight March, Black Minds Matter Rally and Raised in the Revolution Youth Summit. She served as a Greensboro Delegate to the NC Black Women’s Roundtable Leadership Council as well as Working Group Strategic Facilitator for Democracy Greensboro. During which she co-authored a progressive political platform to push campaigning city councilors toward antiracism.
As a surveyor of landscapes, both socioeconomic and political, she created “intersectionality in action” workshops and intergenerational support groups, centering the lived experience of trans and queer people of color. She holds a B. A. in sociology from Kean University and an M.L.I.S. in Library Science from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
April currently serves as a Media Specialist for Guilford County Schools and is the inaugural Creative Catalyst Fellow at Elsewhere.
Follow Parker’s Projects: Website + Instagram + Facebook
Debbie The Artist
Debbie The Artist (they/themme) is a non-binary black-queer-feminist who embodies the power of creative expression as a vehicle for social change. Unapologetic in the pursuit of social justice and racial equity, Debbie pictures a revolutionary society where folks can exercise their fundamental human rights free from fear. This abolitionist politic shows up in all that they do. When they say, “Art is who and what I am”, what they mean is art is their tool, their medicine, their voice and vision. The songbird hails from Durham, North Carolina where they shake, make, bake, and create. Debbie writes music rooted primarily in the lived experiences of love, loss, magic, and triumph.
Antoine Williams
Antoine Williams' interdisciplinary practice is an investigation of power and perception through the lens of critical race theory. Heavily influenced by science fiction, and his rural, working-class upbringing in Red Springs, North Carolina, Antoine has created his own mythology about the complexities of contemporary Black life. An artist-educator, Antoine received his BFA from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and his MFA from UNC Chapel Hill. He helped start the God City Art Collective in Charlotte, where he participated in a number of socially engaged, community-based art projects. He is a member of the North Carolina Black Artists for Liberation (NCBAFL). A group dedicated to making art institutions in North Carolina more equitable spaces for BIPOC communities. In 2020, Antoine partnered with a number of museums to fundraise for Black Lives Matter and organizations protesting the criminal justice system. He also worked with the Biden/Harris campaign creating public art to spur Black voter turnout to counter voter suppression. He has exhibited in a number of places, including at the Mint Museum of Art, Michigan State University, Columbia Museum of Art, Smack Mellon Brooklyn, 21c Museum, Elsewhere Museum, The McColl Center of Art and Innovation, the California Museum of Photography as well as many other venues. He has taken part in a virtual residency at The Center For Afrofuturist Studies, in 2022 he is slated to attend the Joan Mitchel Residency in New Orleans and is in the 2021 Drawing Center viewing program, He is also a recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell Award for Painters and Sculptors and the 2018 Harpo Foundation Grant Award. His work is in the collection of the Mint Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art. He’s given talks at Auburn University and UNC-Chapel Hill. Williams is an associate professor of art at Guilford College.
J. Andrew Speas
J. Andrew Speas is a native of Winston-Salem, NC, and a senior in the BFA Acting program and Minor in Musical. He studied at the UNCSA in the Dr. Marilyn Taylor voice studio. He is alumni of the NC Black Repertory Teen Theater Ensemble where he studied under Mabel Robinson. Credits include Regional Theater: They That Sit in Darkness (Triad Stage), On the Brink of Silence (Triad Stage), A Christmas Carol (Triad Stage), Man of La Mancha (Triad Stage), Jelly's Last Jam (National Black Theater Festival), Mabel Robinson’s The Glory of Gospel (NC Black Repertory Company, Peppercorn Theater: Flor to Somewhere, Proceed Moon, The Tourist Trap (Peppercorn Theater), UNCG Theater: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Heathers, Hair, Pippin, The Tempest. Opera Credits: The Italian Straw Hat (UNC-SA), The Italian Girl in Algiers (Piedmont Opera). Film: Sad Clown, a Kemari Bryant Film. He is an Actors Equity Membership Candidate (EMC). J. Andrew is a founding member and former Co-head of Outreach at Adynaton Productions a grass-roots company founded in Greensboro, NC by students and alumni of UNCG. Through Adynaton J. Andrew has produced Libations and Brina, assistant director for Mothman: An Anti-Hate Superhero Comedy and co-director for Andromeda in the Hawthorne Web Series. When J. is not working as an actor or director he teaches theatre arts to students around the Triad and the Push 21 Academy.
Karen Archia
My name is Karen Archia and I am a Greensboro-based visual artist. Currently, I am Artist-in-Residence at The Center for Visual Artists (CVA). I work mostly with Sumi ink, a jet black ink made from charcoal and water, and a wide range of colored acrylic inks. I enjoy using a variety of unconventional tools to make marks, and often use no tool at all by simply tilting and/or bending a surface to move the ink. I also use Procreate to create digital artwork.
You will see recurrent visual themes of a strong black line in my work, intuitive gestures and references to familiar forms. I balance chaos and order in my artwork to express a sense of dynamic movement, and I believe strongly in the versatility of black.
I am also Creative Director/Founder of a community-based project called Public Art Practice (PAP), which seeks to liberate, encourage and affirm the creative spirit in all people. Many of you may know me from the free PAP group art-making sessions and Open Studios I held at Deep Roots Market, Greensboro’s only community-owned market and cafe, or from my art events at the Greensboro Public Library. I hosted more than 50 PAP sessions/open studios between September 2019 - February 2020 (PAP sessions are on hiatus due to COVID-19).
During this time of quarantine, I have continued to focus on on art-making and stayed active in social media promoting the arts, artists and creativity, and making art that reflects the intersections of my personal journey and identity, creative expression and the world around me. You can follow me on Instagram @scrappyunicorn to see my work and share time with me virtually each Saturday afternoon during my IG live broadcasts from my residency time at The CVA.
I have participated in exhibitions at the CVA, Guilford College and currently have work on display and for sale at Transform GSO, the co-working space in downtown Greensboro. In 2019, I was awarded a scholarship to study at the Penland School of Craft, an internationally-acclaimed school in western NC for the creative community.
My artwork reflects my continued desires for authentic expression, to connect with people, and to provide sanctuary for the viewer to contemplate, feel and enjoy the images fully on their own terms. Please feel free to contact me @publicartpractice@gmail.com
Social: @publicartpractice | @scrappyunicorn | FB - Public Art Practice
Jordan Booker-Medley
Jordan Booker-Medley is the current Engagement and Relations services manager at The Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County. Mr. Medley works on the Partner Relations and Services team where he helps to manage the Arts Council’s grant programs, cultivate community relationships and develop support services for arts organizations and individual artists. Medley is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in contemporary dance. Jordan continues to work in North Carolina as a freelance dancer and choreographer, and teaching artist. While navigating the early stages of his career, Jordan has had the pleasure of working with nationally recognized artists. Medley has his project-based dance company, Medley of Moves, and has performed, choreographed, and premiered work with High Point University, Dance Project, Wake Forest Dance Festival, and several musical theater productions in the region.
Jordan T. Robinson
Jordan T. Robinson is a North Carolina-based artist and emerging curator, who runs a creative services brand to help the community, called JTR Presents. Thanks to the support he received from his family, Robinson cultivated a love for the Arts that later inspired him to attend North Carolina A&T State University, where he obtained his degree in Media Design. Soon after, Robinson enrolled in Savanna College of Art & Design to further the administrative skill sets he developed from producing exhibitions independently.
In undergrad, he got more involved with handling the administrative tasks involved in producing exhibitions for the art department, while producing artwork himself. Robinson often collaborated with other art institutions as he was once an art teacher at the African-American Atelier, a curatorial assistant at GreenHill NC, and frequently shown in the student exhibitions at the Center for Visual Artists. His recent work involves an exhibition focused on advocating for the Transgender, Intersex, and Non-binary community through art and design, called The Transparency Project.
