returning to Minnesota in 2023, i grounded in supporting the work of other creatives while taking the time to be in community with those who reflect the intersections i embody: Black, disabled, queer, neurodivergent and nonbinary. taking time to make new connections and reconnect with creative folx who continue to remind me why i’ve returned.

inspired by these conversations and in desiring intentional community in the midst of societal precarities, i’m beginning to develop a new project – side by side by side by – in collaboration with core artists Donte Collins and Symone Wilson. i welcome this newness, deepening in – as scholar Kevin Quashie offers in Black Aliveness, or a Poetics of Being – “conceptualizing an aesthetic imaginary founded on black worldness” that affirms intersectionality with, by and in celebration of queerness, disability, neurodivergence, trans and nonbinary aliveness.

more on this new project soon, but in thinking about building a new work in community, i am reminded of the last project developed and shaped in alignment with Black and Brown disabled, neurodivergent folx. in Chicago, 2023: SHIFT.

sharing a beautiful photo by Nikki Bruce, a glimpse from SHIFT: the promenade featuring community participants at MCA Chicago.